Chronicles of Murphy: Book 1
by warai kitsune
Summary: A young man finds himself sent into Lodoss. Unfortunately, just a few things have changed. Not much, but enough to potentially upset the entire balance, to plunge the entire dimension into ruin. And having seen the series, he knows just enough to MAYBE
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: Yadda-yadda-yadda...you know what goes here. Or you should. And if you don't know yet, you have no business reading this in the first place.

thoughts

_**Chronicles of Murphy: Book One**_

_**Book of the Accursed**_

**Prologue**

Most people have, one time or another heard of Murphy's Law. More properly though, one would have to say Murphy's LAWS. Combined, they basically state that if something CAN go wrong, it WILL go wrong, at the worst possible time, in the worst way possible, in the manner which will involve the most people...you get the point. In short, the shit will always hit the fan, making the biggest mess. (Interestingly, the 2nd law of thermodynamics states something similar; the entropy (or disorder) of a system will always increase).

What is less well known is that it originated only recently, in 1949 at Edward's Air force Base. It was named after Captain Edward A. Murphy; it's generally agreed among the geeks who bother to argue this point that he didn't really coin the phrase so much as inadvertently give a name to an opinion that had been around for almost as long as taxes.

What is even LESS known is that one trans-dimensional version of Murphy (a different Murphy who was still responsible for coining the law in HIS universe) was posthumously deified. (He was hitchhiking to a gas station after his car ran out of gas, wearing white, and facing oncoming traffic when a British motorist driving on the wrong side of the rode ran him over). Specifically, the god Murphy; Deity 3rd class, License Pending; god of outrageous plot devices and random, inexplicable occurrences.

At the moment, he was in charge of a shop known simply as "Murphy's." You've probably seen similar shops before; places that sell natural goods, weird jewelry, mainstream witchcraft paraphernalia...that sort of thing. Stuff for people who think they're mystical and spiritual and in tune with the Earth Mother, but who really don't know what the hell they're babbling about.

Which is why I hasten to point out that the person inside wasn't one of them. Don't get me wrong, he believed in magic, spirits, a higher power that no major religion had gotten right, and the truth represented in science fiction. He just had the basic common sense to realize that what this place was selling had nothing to do with real magic.

He just liked the style of jewelry; mainly pendants and such.

There were quite a few problems though. Mostly ones that he didn't know about. Though more on those AFTER they hit the fan.

"Anyway, I was wondering if you have anything involving Native American art. Specifically, anything with coyote."

Murphy shrugged. His god markings were oddly enough, little wrenches; one on each cheek, one on the forehead. "We have a little bit of everything. What were you hoping for specifically? Something that actually came from a coyote or just a representation."

Alex blinked. "Um...do I want to know what kind of things you have from coyotes?" He happened to like coyotes; he respected their genius at surviving.

"Claws, teeth, carvings from bone, tufts of fur, eyeballs..."

"I'll take a representation, thanks."

"Metal, wood, gemstone, what?"

Alex shook his head. "You really have that much? What about a wolf, or..." he wracked his brains "...some kind of mongoose?"

"Mongoose or just some kind of relative; civet, genet, linsang?"

Much staring. "...how precisely do you keep that much stuff in this place?" The store couldn't have been more than a couple hundred square feet.

Suddenly a bit more alert, Murphy grinned. "We don't display much; most of it's stored in the basement warehouse. Anyway, you said you wanted something having to do with coyotes?"

He wasn't entirely sure why, but something about this was making him nervous. Still, he plunged ahead, confident he'd get through relatively unscathed. Poor fool. "Well ,like I said, I feel kind of nervous about going around with something that used to be an actual PART of a coyote, but I'd like something."

Nodding, Murphy turned to head for the alleged storage room. "I think I have just the thing for you. Would you mind waiting around?" Not bothering to wait for an answer, he disappeared into the dark doorway. Startled a bit by the rather abrupt departure, Alex continued looking around. Most of the walls were covered in various posters and wall-hangings; glass-lined cases stood in front of the walls providing counter and display cases both. Kusudama, wind-chimes, bells, and various other noise-makers hung from the rafters. The tops of the cases were covered in magical paraphernalia; ofuda scrolls and charms, incense racks, ornate knives that were barely sharp enough to be used as letter openers, and masks. The cases themselves held huge trays of rings; some jeweled, some ornate metal...some were gold, some silver, some looked like they were copper, a few even looked like they'd been carved from solid gemstones.

"As I said, I think this will be perfect for you."

Alex started as the proprietor showed up; he hadn't thought that he could have been out of his line-of-sight long enough to be back. Then his eyes fell on the pendant dangling from Murphy's fingers, and any worry was swept away in a wave of mixed awe and avarice.

It wasn't too terribly large; it could have fit in a box two inches square, possibly smaller. The first thing he noticed was the large, spherical gem at the top of the pendant. He wasn't sure what it was, but he guessed it was amber, or maybe a flawed topaz. Though topaz wouldn't have had a cat's eye in it.

What struck him though was the rest of the piece. Receiving a nod of permission from Murphy, he tentatively held it in his hand. His first thought that it was some kind of wood was banished; no wood would have been that cool to touch, that perfectly smooth. It had been carved from what looked like a mixture of hawks eye and tigers eye; black brown and gold in a mixed pattern almost like wood grain. The lowest portion took on the appearance of a canine in the sit position; he couldn't decide if it was supposed to be a wolf, fox, coyote, German shepherd...really, it was just kind of vaguely doglike. What was so startling however was that rising over its head was an intricately woven pattern of what looked like tails; nine of them, he noticed after counting. Rising over the dog's head, they swirled and wove evenly to encircle and clasp the gemstone, as well as providing the space needed for the cord holding it.

It took a minute for him to stop looking at it and actually remember where he was. Starting, he ruefully handed it back to the proprietor. "Thanks, but I asked for a coyote, not a fox."

"It IS a coyote."

He laughed slightly. No way something with that obvious degree of workmanship in it was within his price range; he needed some better excuse to turn it down. "I know enough mysticism to recognize that; it's a _nogitsune_, a Japanese nine-tailed fox."

Murphy grinned. "Actually, there are legends of coyotes having nine tails. (1) They're just less known. Besides, it's a fairly well-known comparison that the fox spirit of the east and the coyote of the west serve essentially the same purpose; trickster."

Alex's smile turned rueful. "If you say so. Sorry, but there's no way I can afford that; I don't have that much on me anyway - "

"6.99."

"...You're kidding."

"Nope. This piece is six dollars and ninety-nine cents. Seven dollars and twenty eight cents with tax."

Alex stared at the piece. He wanted it; he REALLY wanted it, which surprised him. Still, he wasn't sure that he was willing to trust the shopkeeper; for all he knew, this guy fenced cultural treasures or something. "What's the stone made of?"

Murphy smiled. Gotcha! "Oddly enough, this is all one piece of quartz crystal. Well, one piece of various minerals, anyway. The carving is hawks eye, as you might have guessed, while the cabochon is citrine."

He frowned in thought. He'd heard of the stone; basically yellow quartz crystal. Rare, but not particularly valuable. Greed finally won out over his worries as he dug out the cash necessary.

Murphy smiled as the young man turned to leave. "Come again." He hadn't even bothered to wait to get out of the store before he'd put the piece on. Probably for the best really; he'd need all the help he could get.

Leaning against the counter, Murphy grinned. Part of his test for making it to God 2nd Class was this; supposedly something about learning balance. The kid had actually been planning to enter the Third Planet, some weird shop in a college town that sold stuff similar to what he'd seen. But that was part of the magic of the shop; you'd never even realize you'd made a wrong turn. Murphy just had to learn how to match each potential customer with something they'd buy. Not necessarily something that would benefit them, though the odds were 50/50.

And last of all, the magic of the door. Not only would it let anyone in from any place, it would lead them to wherever they wanted to go.

Whether they realized it or not.

To be continued...

**Author's Notes:** Not much to go on, I admit, but read on if you'd like. Some warnings; this is an SI. For those of you who aren't nerds yet, that stands for Self-Insert. In other words, the raging egomaniac behind the keyboard is going to be essentially writing a story with him as the main character, without hardly trying to disguise his arrogance.

Though I do hope to follow Gregg Sharp's example and try to avoid a lot of the clichés that you'd expect; you know, ultimate power, I'm somehow better than all the real characters, ending up with all the female leads...okay, maybe not all of them. But hey, I deserve to have a little fun, don't I?

(1) - Actually, there aren't. I'm just making this up, though it WILL have some significance later on.


	2. Chapter 1: Riding the Butterfly

Disclaimer: I do not own etc., I am using without permission, don't sue, not making money, so on and so forth.

_**Chronicles of Murphy: Book One**_

_**Book of the Accursed**_

Thoughts

"" Telepathy

**Chapter One**

Riding the Butterfly

Leaving the shop was no problem. The problem was that as soon as he stepped outside, vertigo hit. He didn't think anything of it at the time; he assumed it was just a head rush, and would pass in a few seconds. In that at least, he was right.

The problem was that when it passed, he wasn't in Kansas anymore. (I mean that literally, not as a pun; he'd entered the shop from Lawrence, Kansas). Downtown Lawrence certainly wouldn't have had that many trees; at least not growing outside of concrete planters. It also wouldn't have had grass, or at least grassy mud instead of asphalt streets.

Though he didn't really start to worry until after he turned and noticed that the door to the shop no longer existed; neither did the shop, the building complex, or the street it was on. In point of fact, there wasn't even a building where the door should have been.

At which point panic finally set in.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!"

His bellow was mirrored shortly thereafter, though this was a feminine scream, and unquestionably of distress. And unlike a scream in a city, this was one that you couldn't doubt hearing.

Thankful and slightly desperate for something else to focus on, he finished slinging his umbrella through the straps of his backpack, cinched those tighter, and ran in the direction his ears told him the scream came from.

The scream had been fairly faint; it took a while to find where it had been. And whoever had screamed, sensibly enough, was running away rather than making like a scared rabbit. The path she'd taken was quite clear however, as the soft, muddy undergrowth of the forest quite clearly showed bare footprints being followed by MUCH more numerous boots.

Pausing at the sight, Alex knelt to look down at the tracks for a moment. Granted it could have meant that there were simply a bunch of people who were rather clumsy (or maybe the tracks had been from something earlier), it meant as near as he could tell, that if and when he found the screamer, he'd be outnumbered. And somehow an umbrella didn't really seem like the best choice of weapon against an opponent he knew absolutely nothing about.

Then something clicked in his head. That it did so in concert with his newly-bought pendant coming into skin contact didn't really register. What DID register was something along the lines of this.

A woman just screamed and ran away. She was next to a pool when she screamed (or at least that appears to be the case). She was now running away from several people. People who most likely saw her alone and helpless. Judging from the sound of the scream, she was relatively young. So, what would a bunch of hostile men do to a single woman when they catch her?

It took his conscious mind a few seconds to catch up with his automatic response; by that time he'd already started sprinting after the tracks as fast as he could. He didn't know the person. He didn't know the cause or circumstances. He didn't even know if he was right and he was about to become a witness of sorts to a rape. Oddly enough, (for such a self-professed coward anyway), he didn't care. He wasn't thinking about how badly he might get hurt. He wasn't even thinking about how badly SHE (whoever she was) might get hurt.

All that he could think about at the moment was the fact that if he wasn't just being paranoid, and what he feared was actually taking place, he was going to stab someone in the eye with a blunt instrument and twist it.

And he didn't think anything of it.

* * *

He managed to catch up before anything happened, but his uncharacteristic anger was blunted by shock when he came upon the scene.

The girl couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen; small-boned and slight, with long wavy black hair; she looked like an innocent and was dressed in what looked like the clothing of a 12th century peasant. That she was lying on her back with her eyes covered and seemed to be praying it would be over soon was duly noted, the information being stored away in short term memory to properly jump-start bloody frothing rage after his surprise was taken care of.

What startled him was that there weren't any men trying to kill her (among other, less savory things). At least not human men. He wasn't quite sure what they were, though for some reason they looked familiar. About four feet tall (if they weren't hunched over anyway), their bodies were strongly muscled and covered in dark, reddish brown skin. Long, pointed ears stretched almost shoulder-to-shoulder, while fangs protruded from their lower jaws under glassy yellow eyes. They were all carrying weapons of some sort, from short swords and cutlasses to spears and simple clubs.

He was almost positive he'd seen this scene somewhere.

At this point however, one of the creatures decided that it needed to kill some time while he waited his turn, and decided to start jabbing his spear at the tall human.

This snapped Alex out of his stupor as he twisted to dodge the tentative thrust. At which point the information dutifully stored away a few paragraphs ago chose to register on a conscious level.

He was about to witness a bunch of short little hunchback monsters inflict a gang rape on a sixteen-year-old child.

Again, he didn't notice the sudden temperature shift from the medallion. Though it was so slight, it was doubtful he'd recognize it anyway.

Conscious thought dutifully took a backseat to primal instinct. His autonomic system, registering that a great deal of sudden and most likely violent action was to occur, proceeded to stomp on the adrenal gland as hard as possible, dumping huge amounts of the chemical into his blood stream.

The creature frowned in slight puzzlement as the human fiddled with something at the left side of his waist as he dodged a second thrust. Curious, the others stepped away from the girl long enough to watch the brief fight. Rather than dodge the third thrust, the stupid human grabbed the spear just behind the head with his left hand. His right flew to his shoulder, yanking out the umbrella and sliding it through his hand until he'd grasped it near the end. He then proceeded to swing the hooked handle into the creature's temple as hard as he could, dropping it like a rock.

Calmly placing the umbrella down and taking a firm grip on the spear, he walked over to the downed, unconscious little monster and very deliberately slammed his heel into its throat, audibly shattering the cartilage of the larynx.

Short term memory again stored this away dutifully, anticipating that when the conscious mind took over again, it would most likely throw up uncontrollably in horror at what he'd just done.

For now though, instinct was still operating as Alex rushed forward abruptly, swinging the full length of the five foot spear, cracking one goblin upside the head. Swiftly shifting his hands backwards, Alex steadied the spear and thrust it as hard as he could into another of the little monsters' ribcages. Grimacing as it caught on bone, he yanked it backwards, pulling the currently dying little thing close enough for him to grab its cutlass.

The others had finally gotten over their shock and awe at the earlier display of throat crushing. Most started backing away, though a few of the more angry ones rushed into an attack.

Using his longer arms and legs, Alex was able to dodge the first few strikes. A few managed to get through his defense enough to draw blood on the arms and legs, but he was too high on adrenaline to feel any pain. Instead, he simply deflected one blow into a convenient tree trunk. Then, as the owner struggled to free his blade, he reversed his grip and stabbed him in the hollow of the collarbone.

Most were ready by this time to turn tail and run. Unfortunately (for them anyway), Alex hadn't been the only one to hear the scream.

The other six or so had been killed by the time his current fight ended. Stomping on his opponent's blade hard enough to knock it from his hand, he'd struck with a back fist to the chin, followed by a vicious, full-armed slice to the throat. His conscious mind noted that he'd actually managed to score the bone of the cervical vertebrae on that last stroke. At this point, noting that there was no longer any need for the fight-or-flight response, his adrenal gland relaxed, ending the sudden high as consciousness took over.

"Nicely done. We could have killed the others, but probably not before they'd started in on her."

He barely heard the woman's voice. It was all rushing back now. Killing that last one by slicing its throat. The fourth dying as he laid open its chest to the ribcage, screaming before the blow to the back of its neck as it spun severed the spinal cord, halting the pain long enough for it to bleed to death. The hot spurt of blood from the subclavian artery as he stabbed the third over the collarbone. The grinding squeal of steel against bone when he rammed a spear through the second. The sickening crunch when he'd...

True to his subconscious' earlier prediction, he collapsed to his hands and knees, shuddered in combined shock and adrenaline withdrawal, and heaved until he felt miserable enough to think about it again. At which point, bereft of anything else to lose, he dry wretched in the stink of blood and vomit.

He felt a comforting hand squeeze his shoulder as a somewhat rough feminine voice tried reassuring him. "First time in a fight, huh? Most people blot out after their first time. Don't feel like you're anything less because of it. Just remember; they were goblins, they were monsters, and if you hadn't killed them, they would have killed you and that girl too."

He frowned slightly. I'm probably still in shock. My mind's playing tricks on me. For some reason the voice sounded familiar too, though he kept thinking the words were wrong. He turned to look at her, trying to scrape together some kind of thanks for the kind words -

And felt his jaw lock, his eyes bulge at the sight of her. "Shiris..."

The red-headed mercenary blinked. "Huh? Do I know you?"

He could feel his head spinning as he turned to her two companions. Still on horseback, his six-foot great sword gleaming dully with the little things' Goblins, he reminded himself, goblin blood on his sword, was Orson. The other...

The last thing he could remember thinking as he black out completely was something along the lines of, but Parn doesn't meet them until after the fight at the village...

* * *

Pain.

That was the first thing he felt as he woke up.

Not severe pain, not really anyway. He'd hurt like this a few times when he'd gotten cut in the kitchen, so probably nothing serious. Though his head hurt like hell.

The second thing he noticed was the god-awful taste in his mouth. He grimaced at the memory of vomiting. The sore throat and the taste was what he'd always hated about it...

Unfortunately, remembering that triggered a memory of WHY he'd thrown up. It wasn't as vivid this time; thankfully not vivid enough to trigger another upchuck, but he was still being rather painfully bombarded with the fact that he'd just killed five living creatures. Up until then, the biggest thing he'd ever killed was a particularly large spider.

He didn't feel sick enough to throw up. You can still feel incredibly nauseous without throwing up.

"Are you finally awake?"

He turned to the familiar voice. It was still something of a shock, but he managed to stay conscious this time. Small improvement was better than none, right?

"Do...I'm sorry if this seems rude, but...could I just be alone for a little bit?" He grimaced. "And can I have some water and some kind of empty pot?"

Etoh winced. "Do you feel nauseous again?"

"Kind of."

The priest novice dutifully brought a wooden bowl of water, and a much larger pottery bowl. Swirling the water around his mouth, he spat into the larger bowl until the water ran out. It wasn't enough to get rid of the sour taste in his mouth completely, but it was worth something. "Thank you."

"Do you need some more?"

He shook his head. "No thank you." He was getting ready to hunker back into the bed when he noticed. "Um...do you mind?"

Etoh started. "Oh! No, not at all. Um...before I go, I just wanted to let you know. Those three mercenaries who helped carry you in left all your things here; they're by the foot of the bed. Oh, and Liara wants to see you when you're awake. Should I tell her?"

He nodded slightly. Liara. He remembered now; the daughter of the Mayor of Zaxom. Episode two, Record of the Lodoss War. Then he started. "Uh, please don't tell her I'm awake yet. I...I kind of need to think about things for a second."

Etoh nodded, turning to leave. Alex paused. "Um...did you heal my injuries?"

Etoh paused, then turned, smiling. "I'm not much of a priest yet, but I'm rather good at healing. You should be fine in a day or two; you won't even have scars."

He nodded gratefully as the priest left. Drawing his legs to his chest, he thought about what he'd seen. Parn. Shiris. Orson. Etoh. He was now (presumably) in the village of Zaxom in northern Alania, a place that wasn't supposed to exist. If that was the case, then he was on the planet known as Forceria, south of the continent Alecrast, on Lodoss. The Accursed Land. A continent the size of Greenland, created when a goddess of creation struck it from Alecrast, rather than let the curse of the goddess of destruction take the whole land. So, a lot of divine wrath on a little piece of land.

He was living in the first anime series he'd ever watched completely, his favorite series, and rather than being elated, he was in turns shocked, angry, and scared shitless.

Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to look at it analytically. Goblins had attacked Liara. That was the second episode of the series, though the first thing that happened (for some reason, episode one took place time wise between episodes four and six). However, there were a lot of divergences. He wasn't even the biggest one. If he remembered right, Parn was supposed to be the hero who killed one goblin and scared off the rest. Etoh showed up, patched him up, and the two returned to Zaxom in time for the villagers to complain and lecture about how he shouldn't have killed one, just frightened them off. And the next day, the rest of the goblins showed up and tried...to burn to the village to the ground, killing a LOT of people in the process. Also, again if he remembered right, Ghim was supposed to leave the temple in Tarba to start looking for Leylia. He'd head south, and should reach the village sometime either after Alex had arrived, or while he was still unconscious.

Except that Parn hadn't saved her, he had. Ghim wouldn't be a problem, and considering how insular the villagers were, he doubted that this particular act would have any repercussions on the immediate causality; things would likely come to pass as they did in the series. But Parn...

Parn was the hero of the series. He was supposed to experience a climactic coming of age here with his victory over the leading hobgoblin, which would in turn send him on the adventure that would eventually lead him to defeating Kardis herself and saving the world.

But something had happened; maybe he'd gotten fed up with the villagers and left the village a while ago. Somewhere along the line he'd met Shiris and Orson, something that wasn't supposed to have happened until...episode seven, he was pretty sure. At least not until after the War of Heroes.

He sighed. If Parn met Deedlit, there was a good chance that most of this would come to pass. The problem was that he'd already left, and didn't seem to have any interest in sticking around his old village, so there wasn't any reason for them to meet. No Parn + Deed match, and...

Lodoss could very well be screwed.

Alex groaned. His head was starting to hurt. The real problem here was himself. He was the wrench in the works, the flap of the butterfly's wings; he destabilized the whole timeline of events.

Assuming that this timeline would go the way the canon version had, anyway. Somehow, he didn't see that happening.

Taking a deep breath, he considered things carefully, wracking his brains for every detail concerning this episode. The villagers would probably show up sooner or later to berate him for creating this mess. If the mayor was true to form, he'd show up in the middle and tell them to be quiet; he at least was thankful that his daughter hadn't been killed/dishonored. Then he'd go talk to Slayn; Ghim would already be there. And by the next morning, the goblins would attack. Ghim and Slayn would acquit themselves well; Ghim could easily take on the hobgoblin, but that wasn't the point. They needed some hero who could eventually grow through this whole mess and lead them all to victory, and the default hero wasn't here. Alex was.

He was many things, most of them odd. One of them was honest with himself.

And he was NOT a hero. Because in his opinion, heroes were something to admire but not aspire towards.

Because heroes had a really bad habit of turning up dead.

He sighed again. Thinking back, it was letting the goblins live that probably triggered the attack. They were supposedly bewitched into doing it, but they needed some kind of impetus (hopefully). He didn't think that there had been any survivors of his attack (he winced), so it would probably take longer for the goblins to realize they'd lost members of their 'clan' and attack; he had a few days, if he was lucky.

Or maybe not so lucky. He needed Ghim here; the grumbly old dwarf was a trained and talented warrior; Alex most definitely wasn't. Sighing again, he let his legs stretch out and lay on the bed.

The butterfly effect, if he remembered right, stated that if a butterfly flapped its wings in Paris, it changed the weather in New York. A side of chaos theory. Chaos theory basically dealt with systems where there were too many variables to properly and accurately track them all; you used rough estimates rather than solid numbers. The whole thing about the butterfly effect was to point out that it didn't take a lot to derail an already chaotic system. Trying to figure out what he was going to do was giving him a headache, and he wasn't sure if there was even the slightest that he could do about making this situation work. Because if he screwed up, then there was a good chance that the entire damn continent was going to become a lifeless wasteland.

No, he REALLY didn't want to be a hero.

Though he had come to one conclusion. It had nothing to do with what he was going to do in this mess, but rather with all the self-inserts he'd read.

Of them all, only Gregg Sharp and Jared Ornstead (1) had managed to realize one thing. It was only funny until it actually happened to you.

* * *

Deedlit frowned in thought. This was not something she was given to doing a lot of; the frowning part, anyway. She'd been giving real consideration to just saying 'the heck with humans' and returning to the Forest of No Return. They were interesting, to be sure, but interest only took one so far. Unfortunately, they weren't exciting. Or particularly hospitable to elves. And while she was certainly enjoying her stay in the forests here, there wasn't really anything that she couldn't find back home, and at least there she didn't have to worry about someone making crude jokes about her ears.

No, life among humans, even a life spent mostly away from them, wasn't what she'd hoped it would be.

Then that weirdo appeared, walking out of thin air without ever realizing that she'd almost fallen out of her treetop perch not ten feet away.

Then the screaming had started, and having nothing better to do, she'd followed him.

He wasn't much of a tracker, but the trail had been obvious enough that he'd been able to do what he had to. She'd been a bit shocked at the goblins herself; they were usually a lot more reserved about their raiding (mainly as a survival trait, not so much because of propriety. There isn't even a word for it in goblin). She'd given serious consideration to helping the boy...well, young man anyway. Especially after watching the start of his lackluster performance.

Then he'd proceeded to grind a goblin's throat under his boot heel into so much tenderized meat.

She'd elected to sit back and hope he didn't notice her.

The battle had shocked her. She'd seen battle before; one didn't live long outside without having to defend them self. What had shocked her was his callousness; she'd seen the dead rage in his eyes, and considering how close to berserk he'd been it was a miracle that hyuri hadn't possessed him right on the spot.

His subsequent collapse, his return to the village...he was a mystery. Doubly so with those strange clothes, that odd hooked club weapon of his, and his clear unfamiliarity with the area.

Coming to a decision, she leapt into the treetops, resolving to camp a bit closer to the village tonight.

And she smiled.

It seemed she'd have some excitement after all.

If Alex had heard that thought, he wouldn't have been able to decide whether to laugh hysterically or just beat his head against a wall.

Maybe both.

* * *

Liara fidgeted nervously at the doorway as she listened to the villagers harangue the man. At least Etoh was coming to his defense! Honestly, she could understand them not wanting to attract attention from the goblins, but the way they were going on, it would have been better if she HAD been killed! The nerve of them to berate her savior that way!

It took a few seconds for that last mental statement to hit conscious thought, but when it did she flushed becomingly. He wasn't exactly the picture of a conquering hero, what with his too-lanky frame and odd speech habits, but he WAS her hero. Hmmm. Why did he just sneeze? She sighed in relief as her father arrived. He didn't yell at them; he didn't ever raise his voice, though in this case she wished he had made an exception. He did however manage to get them to grudgingly admit that he'd done well in rescuing her. And now her father was clearly thanking him in person; if nothing else it would serve to shut the villagers up.

She smiled gratefully as he met her glance briefly. Those odd glass circles he wore seemed doubly strange, as though his gaze was too potent without them. She giggled briefly at the thought.

Zact however refused to shut up. "And what happens when the goblins come back, huh!"

"Didn't you just say that the goblins scare easily?"

They started at the first words of protest from the young man. Liara started herself; she wouldn't have expected such a deep voice from such a slight man. Well, maybe not slight. He wasn't very big, but what he had was clearly in wonderful condition; his tan made it clear that he worked outside a lot. Though she did wonder how his entire body was tanned; he didn't work shirtless did he? (2)

Zact found his tongue. "That doesn't mean we want them making trouble! Just because they'll go away doesn't mean they can't do any damage in the meantime!"

"Then fight them."

"We can't fight that many goblins, you idiot!"

"I did."

THAT brought them up short. His tone wasn't derisive or mocking; if it was they would have felt justified in beating the life out of him, invalid or not. But that slightly questioning, matter-of-fact tone made it clear he thought they could too, and was simply confused why they didn't. Making it rather difficult for them to decide if claiming they couldn't fight (and thereby admitting to inferiority) would be worse than losing the argument.

The mayor managed to use the lull to usher everyone out quietly as he took his own stock of the young man. He was perhaps twenty years old, if that much; taller than most of the men in these parts, he would have topped eighteen hands (slightly over six feet). He wore his hair long, but unlike most men he'd drawn it back into a loose bundle that looked somewhat like he'd tied a squirrel's tail to the back of his head. "Thank you for saving my daughter. I apologize for Zact. He's not a bad person, he's just..."

"Worried for his family," Alex finished. "I don't blame him. I'm...I guess I'm a wanderer of sorts; I can afford to be a bit blasé. He can't."

The mayor nodded, smiling slightly. "Thank you for understanding. If there's anything that we can do to repay you - "

"Actually," Alex interrupted, "there was something I was wondering. Do you happen to have a bow and quiver I could use for a bit? Or barring that, a good fletcher or bowyer around here?"

That brought him up a bit short. "I...we have a bowyer in the villager, but not a fletcher. Are you a hunter?"

Alex shook his head. "No, I'd just like to borrow a weapon for a bit. It's not that I don't feel safe in the village, it's just that I'd prefer something a bit daunting."

The mayor frowned in thought, then walked to the foot of the bed. "If you need a weapon, why not use this?"

He couldn't help himself. "That's an umbrella," Alex managed between laughing. "It's not a weapon, it's a rain shield." At the mayor's confused look, he took it and, swiftly unwrapping it, he snapped it open, feeling slightly guilty for enjoying the startled look on the mayor's face. "It's for keeping rain off your head; I got tired of getting caught by rain storms, so I started carrying it around with me everywhere."

The mayor blinked in confusion, but accepted it. To tell the truth, the slender haft didn't really look like it could stand a lot of stress. "My apologies. If you'll excuse me, I can go talk to the bowyer about a longbow for you." He raised a hand to stifle the protests he saw forming. "Please, it's the least I can do to repay you for saving my daughter. About how strong of a pull should it have?"

Caught flat-footed, Alex answered, "Ah...about forty five pounds."

"I'm sorry?"

"...Oh! Somewhere between three and four stone." (42 and 56 pounds, respectively).

Nodding, the mayor turned to leave. "I don't use our old bow anymore myself; you can have the quiver and arrows if you'd like." Not waiting for a protest or reply, he ushered his daughter out.

Shaking his head, Alex slid back to lie back in bed. He wasn't really all that tired, but it was nice to have someplace to relax and think.

He'd come to a few conclusions. He was going to create ripples; he seemed to be forced into standing in for Parn, effectively making him the main protagonist. Though he hoped it wouldn't get him killed. In the stories (mainly fanfics), the guy who gets sent to another world usually doesn't get hurt, but this wasn't just a story; he was actually stuck here. So better safe than sorry.

Still, Karla was out there. She saw the need for a battle, no, a war between Marmo and the other nations of Lodoss; culling the herd, so to speak. He doubted he'd end up making any ripples big enough to upset her plans that much, so it would be fairly safe to assume that the War of Heroes would take place, regardless of what he did. He'd still try and buffer the damage that might occur, but going with the story would only hurt others more than inverting them would be.

Hence his request. He REALLY didn't want to go toe-to-toe with anymore goblins or nasties, at least not for as long as he could avoid it. Sooner or later he'd be in a battle, but there was a decent chance of prolonging the time before that occurred. Still, if he had to fight, he may as well fight with a weapon that he actually had some idea how to use.

He'd head out the next day, see if the goblins had realized what was going on yet. He'd need to know to adjust the timetable; he needed to have some idea of how long before they attacked. He was definitely going to stay if an attack occurred soon; he WAS responsible for this, and they'd need all the help they could get. Though he'd have to at least TRY to make sure Ghim was around for the fight.

He sighed. Somehow, the heroes made it work. Of course, usually in the story random plot devices made sure that everything came together neatly.

Shaking his head, he pulled at the pendant on his neck, bringing the nine-tailed coyote level with his eyes, staring into the yellow cats-eye. "Somehow, I get the feeling you've got a lot more to do with this than you're letting on." He wondered for a moment if it had actually seemed to wink at him, but before he could decide, exhaustion caught up with him as he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

"Master Slayn, I need your knowledge."

* * *

The morning was, if possible, even more disorienting than the previous day had been.

It began with a sudden crisis in which he apparently lost his vision. He finally calmed down when he realized that everything was fuzzy BECAUSE he was wearing glasses for once; taking them off, he was torn between elation and suspicion as he realized that oh-so-conveniently his eyesight was actually superior to what it had been with his glasses on.

Still, they'd just get broken sooner or later, so this could be for the best.

It was only after dealing with that particular crisis that he realized he was stark naked under his blankets; a state he had DEFINITELY not been in when he'd gone to sleep.

This was solved when Etoh came by to mention that Liara and her mother had decided his clothing needed to be washed; thankfully they'd left some clothing that wasn't entirely unfitting. Though this was only after Liara had run shrieking from his room after he inadvertently gave her a show. Thankfully, his back had been to her at the time, or he probably would have gotten killed by SOMEONE. And in his defense, she hadn't exactly bothered to knock.

After a breakfast of day-old cold venison and fresh bread, passed in awkward silence, the mayor had announced that the bowyer had agreed to let Alex take his pick of his goods first thing in the morning. He'd barely managed to not kick the table in his eagerness to get out of the house.

As they walked away, the mayor deliberately slowed his strides to keep them from getting to the man's house too soon. "Karl decided to let you have your pick of his bows free of charge to either you or me. He seems to feel he owes you a personal thanks for saving Liara."

That brought Alex up short. "Why?"

He coughed into a fist. "Well, let's just say that he keeps a VERY careful eye on Liara."

Left with that reassurance, they picked up the pace.

Karl proved to be similar to Alex; tall and lanky, though he kept his shaggy black hair cut short so as not to get caught in a bowstring. He wasn't just the village bowyer; he was also apparently their fletcher, and the chief hunter. He was also target shooting at a man-shaped silhouette.

He turned, grinning as the two arrived. "So you're the fellow who saved Liara? You have my thanks."

Alex somehow managed a smile. "Nice shot."

Karl turned to admire his handiwork. The target was about fifty yards away; not too terribly far for a weapon that could kill a man at three hundred yards, but impressive all the same. Most importantly, it was close enough that all three could see the arrow still quivering, about half an inch above the groin. "Oh, you could tell that was deliberate?"

Subtle as an anvil on the head. "I didn't think you'd be shooting THERE by accident. What kind of bows do you have?"

As it turned out, he had just about every kind ever conceived. Predominant were longbows; simple staffs of yew with horn-capped nocks for holding the bowstring. However, there were also what looked like Japanese kyudo bows; laminated, layered strips of bamboo bound and glued together, as well as Asiatic composite recurve bows.

As he looked around, Alex noted that despite the earlier display, Karl didn't really seem all that hostile. Well, slightly hostile, but more curious than anything else. Predictably enough, about Liara. "Honestly? I think she's a nice girl, but I've known her for all of what, six hours? Not counting sleep anyway."

Karl nodded as he reached for a shooting glove. "I really meant that about saving her; I wish I could have been there, but I'm not much use in a fight."

"With that kind of accuracy?"

Karl sighed. "Bows and arrows are fine for bringing in food, but they're a coward's weapon. A real man would have the guts, not to mention the skills to use a sword."

Alex snorted, startling Karl. "A coward's weapon? There's no such thing. If you mean a coward would use a bow to shoot a man in the back from far enough away that he wouldn't get blamed, I agree. But the cold hard truth is that a man uses what he has to. Cowardice only counts in duels as far as I'm concerned; there's no shame in killing something from far away when it's a matter of life and death."

Karl sighed. "You're probably the only person in Lodoss who thinks that way. Well, who isn't a coward himself."

"I am a coward."

Karl laughed aloud at that. "You took on a dozen goblins armed with nothing but a curved stick and won. Not too many cowards would do that."

Alex shrugged. "I don't really remember what happened; I think I just snapped and started acting out all the stories I've read about fights. Anyway, it's not really all that hard to kill a goblin." He swallowed at the sudden wetness in his mouth; he really didn't want to throw up again at the thought of what he'd done. "They're quick and certainly dangerous, but you have to remember that they're basically cowards too. Well, that and you have to remember that they only come up to your waist, really. Even unarmed, you or me would have a reach advantage."

Silence reigned as Karl thought about it. "Maybe so, but you're not a coward."

Alex sighed. "Karl, tell me something. If you'd found them like that, armed with a bow and arrow, would you have thrown it down to wade into them and get you and Liara killed, or would you have shot them all and brought her home safely?"

Silence again. Finally, "you're saying that it would have been better to be a successful coward than a brave failure?"

Alex sighed in exasperation. "What I'm saying is that when it's a life and death situation, you shouldn't stand around and ponder how heroic you can be. That's going to get you and the people around you killed."

Karl sighed. "I just...would Liara really think anything of a guy who wasn't willing to get close enough to fight with a warrior's weapon?"

Alex shook his head in exasperation. "I don't know Karl. And I doubt I ever will; I'm planning on leaving before the end of the week, if I stay that long."

The bowyer started. "So soon?"

He shrugged. "I don't really have any reason to hang around. Besides, Zact is a being a royal nuisance."

Karl had to chuckle at that. "He's good at that, isn't he?" Returning to the task at hand, he started talking about his weapons. For all that he considered them cowardly, he knew them to a tee. He was quick to point out the advantages and disadvantages of every piece of weaponry there.

"Longbows are really meant for combat; they're stiff enough that if you have to you can use them like a staff, though it damages the bow. In a forest though, they're way to big to be really convenient. If you need something quick, or if you're hunting something on the wing, you should really go for one of the shorter recurves; just as much power, but a much shorter pull and easier to carry. Though they're harder to keep conditioned properly."

In the end, Alex couldn't choose between two. One was a massive composite bow; he couldn't figure out why Karl had it in the first place. Over seven feet long, it formed the classic curve of the cupid's bow when strung, though he was just barely strong enough to string it in the first place; he estimated the pull of the weapon would have been around 120 pounds; he couldn't actually pull the bow except by standing on the handle and using both arms. He didn't actually intend to use it, though he thought it would be a useful training tool (not to mention great intimidation). There was also some kind of strap on metal sleeve that he could only guess was used as a shield or close-combat weapon.

The other was also a composite bow, though this was just layered and glued wood, and only about five feet long unstrung. This one he could at least draw; maybe a forty-pound pull.

Karl personally felt the second choice was a good one, but as for the first... "I don't even consider that one of my bows. It's been passed down for the past few generations along with the trade, but I've never seen anyone strong enough to actually draw the damn thing. I keep it mostly as a curiosity. Heck, I can barely string it; you must have a strong back to manage that."

Alex hefted the larger bow, gloved hand pulling the string. He managed to draw it almost six inches before his arm started shaking. "Who would have made a bow like this in the first place?"

"I heard that it's supposedly an ogre's bow, but the handle's too small." He shrugged. "If you want it, you're welcome to it, though I don't see why."

Alex sighed. He didn't know why, but he actually DID want that monstrosity. "Thanks, but I'd prefer something I can actually use."

"I didn't say you couldn't have the other one; the truth is, that thing is just a waste of wall space in the shop. I'd thank you for taking the damn thing off my hands."

The deal closed, Alex chose to leave the larger at the shop until he was ready to leave. Apparently, Karl hadn't been kidding about being thankful for losing it; he threw in a rawhide waist quiver and thirty shafts free of charge.

* * *

Deed cursed quietly under her breath as she leapt after Alex. She hadn't really gotten that good of a look at his face the previous day, and had been banking on his odd clothing for recognition. She was just lucky that she'd remembered that odd hairstyle or she never would have realized it was him. The bow and arrow likewise had been new.

She watched as he set up a target, hanging it from a tree branch rather than nailing it on. She liked that.

Watching him shoot however, she could barely keep from laughing. He'd retreated about fifty yards for shooting, and after going through every arrow in his quiver, the closest he'd managed to get to the target was about a foot from the edge.

Which had led to the past half an hour muttering what sounded like curses she'd never heard before as he searched through the underbrush for the three-foot clothesyards. Deciding that this was as good an opening as any, she slipped silently away.

Muttering things unfit for the ears of a lady (or you, dear readers), Alex thrust another arrow into the quiver at his waist. He decided that it hadn't just been an inferior toy bow, nor a lack of focus when he was a kid that kept him from being a good archer. He just flat didn't know what he was doing. Sighing, he stooped for an arrow that was at least visible.

And froze as a leather-clad foot entered his line of sight.

Slowly rising, he traced the baggy-looking leg wrappings to a slender, shapely, and noticeably pale female leg. Past a green skirted tunic, he noticed that she was wearing a dark blue cape. His heart skipped more than a beat as he realized who'd shown up an episode ahead of schedule.

Deed smiled at him as she handed him his last dozen arrows. "You really should have considered shooting someplace where it would be easier to retrieve these." She giggled airily at the pole-axed look on his face. "Are you alright?"

Conscious thought gained ground with a vengeance; he literally started as his mouth regained a link with his brain (thankfully, when it disconnected it just flat stopped rather than start spouting whatever else might be going through his head). "Uh...yeah." Brilliant. Eloquent and elegant.

She giggled again. "You look like you've seen a ghost." Or something supernatural, anyway.

He shook his head, speech centers rebooting quickly. "I...it's just...I never expected to see you here."

She cocked an eyebrow; it was amazing just how much she could express with such a small gesture. "Oh? Expecting to see an elf, were you?"

"Not...quite." His eyes bulged as she suddenly swept closer, her lips inches from his ear.

"No elves where you're from, hmm?"

He swallowed thickly. She smelled like lavender and lilac, rain on fresh grass...she smelt like spring. The fact that he'd kind of had a crush on her certainly didn't help. "No...not really." He didn't really want to, but he felt the question had to be asked. "Uh...would you mind not doing that?" He winced slightly as he felt her breath on his ear.

"Do I make you nervous?"

"Yes." Sometimes, just sometimes, he was completely honest with others than himself.

She smiled, closing the two or so inches she had away from him. "I wouldn't think anything could frighten a man like you." She managed to keep her giggle down this time as she shivered. "Not a man who can walk out of thin air."

He stiffened. The shock also managed to knock his hormones back into a somewhat more subservient role. "Oh. You saw that."

She felt her smile fade at the suddenly cautious tone of his voice. Sighing, she stepped back. "How'd you do it?"

He shrugged. "I didn't; someone else sent me through, and I haven't got the faintest idea how. Or why, for that matter."

She gave him a measuring look. He didn't look like he was lying, but someone that accomplished would likely know enough to ACT sincere. On the other hand, she didn't think a master wizard would have vomited after a fight, nor would he have had to resort to using pilfered goblin weaponry. "Well, where did you come from then?"

He looked at her in surprise, and laughed quietly. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Or recognize it for that matter."

She crossed her arms, put out by his certainty. "Try me."

Still chuckling slightly, he asked, "ever heard of Earth?"

In answer, she knelt gracefully and presented him with several grains of dirt.

Laughing, he brushed them from her hands, startled by the feel of her hands; he'd expected perfectly soft skin, but while nowhere near as rough as his hands, they clearly belonged to someone who knew about work. "Not that..." Sighing, he squatted beside a patch of bare dirt, one of his newly returned arrows reduced to being a pointer. "Think of it like this. Imagine that the world is an island; not Lodoss, but all of Forceria. But around these islands, instead of water, there's this...emptiness. Space that hasn't gained a world of its own yet." He traced a circle, then a second further away. "I came from a different one of these 'islands,' one called Earth."

She looked up askance, but the only question she asked was, "you named your world after dirt?"

He shrugged. "It doesn't seem as bad as you might think." Turning, he stood back up, trying to focus. He wouldn't have all that much time before the attack, and he needed to figure out how to shoot straight.

Well, shoot accurately, anyway. The arrows were going quite straight.

As he nocked the arrow, he started as Deed wrapped her arms around his. "What are you doing?"

"Just shooting over and over CAN make you a better shot, but there are quicker ways. Now listen. No, don't draw the bow yet. Just stare at the target...no, that's wrong. Don't stare, just look at it. Don't concentrate on it, just look." Her voice began to smooth out, lulling; hypnotic. "Look at everything around the target. See it, but don't see anything else. Now, just the target. No, don't tense up. Just look at the target; look right at the center of the target. Nothing else matters, but don't exclude. Feel the target. Don't think about it, just feel it. Feel the distance, feel the wind, feel the feathers on your fingertips, the wood in your hand. Wait until you feel all three perfectly; bow, arrow, target, body."

"Now, draw it."

The bow rose slowly, arrow undrawn. Slowly, it drew back until the fletching was even with his ear. He felt as though it really was part of him; he could feel the shot. He could feel it...he could feel...

He could feel her hands start sliding away from his arm towards the torso.

She bit her lip to keep from laughing as the shot sailed wide by a good two feet from his sudden jerk. "You really need to learn how to block out the outside distractions, you know."

He stared at her in mixed surprise and exasperation. Somehow, he'd never imagined she'd be a tease. Bossy, yes. Stubborn, certainly. Affectionate, well...if she found someone she liked. This? "What's your name?"

She smiled sweetly. "Deedlit."

He'd already known, but it would be awkward using that name before she said it herself. "Well Deedlit, that's a good trick for competition shooting, but I don't think it's such a good idea for combat."

"Why not? What point is shooting if you can't hit the target every time?"

"Because sooner or later, someone's going to sneak up on you while you're drawing a bead and put an axe in your skull." Drawing another arrow, he nocked it, setting his feet. "Let me try this without your 'distractions' this time."

She leaned back into the tree watching him draw. Strange, he almost seems casual. Much sooner than she'd expected, he loosed the arrow.

It sank with a satisfying THUNK into the wood and rope eight inches from the center of the target.

Deed couldn't help but stare. It was a good shot, but not an excellent one. What made it amazing was that he'd managed to improve THAT much with just one trick. "You could be a very good archer."

He smiled at the elf. It was kind of nice to see her flustered; he preferred that to teasing. "It's been a while since I shot. It's kind of - "

Screams reached their ears.

He started, shock clear in his eyes. "They're attacking!"

Deed started as he abruptly sprinted away. "What's going on?"

"Goblins! They're attacking the village!"

Her eyes widened as she started after him. "Goblins? In daylight?"

* * *

They managed to reach Zaxom faster than Parn and Etoh would have. Etoh's presence was actually proving surprisingly beneficial; the mousy little cleric was at the moment laying waste to goblins with holy magic.

Ghim was wading hip deep into the goblins, battleaxe ripping a swathe through their bodies. Slayn had managed to un-bewitch a large group of the goblins early on, and was currently trying to regain his breath for additional spells. Unfortunately, the freed goblins were still following their hobgoblin leader's orders.

Drawing an arrow, Alex didn't hesitate as he sent his first shot into the nearest goblin. He'd been aiming for center mass, and by a lucky shot had managed to hit the heart. Not bothering to get into the thick of things, he forced himself not to think about dead goblins as he emptied his quiver of the remaining twenty eight arrows. He forced himself to think about women and children being killed; about innocent farmers and blacksmiths who were dying for no reason.

Six shots missed completely, though thankfully he managed to keep from hitting any humans. Of the remaining twenty two shots, he'd find after sorting through the bodies for arrows that he'd managed to outright kill fifteen of the goblins, while the other seven only wounded.

Having run out of arrows (and finally come under the notice of frothing irate goblins), he was torn. He'd managed to save quite a few, and if he ran now he might be able to find a way back to help. Unfortunately, his conversation with Karl was fresh in his mind, and he doubted claiming a bow was brave would hold much water if he ran now. On the other hand, the armed and still-living goblins who were charging him were already past any dead goblins he could have conveniently stolen a weapon from.

At which point Deed finally entered the fray. "Are all humans as impetuous as you?"

Starting at her sudden appearance, he allowed a slight, grateful smile to cross his lips. "Actually, I'd probably be considered conservative by some."

She shuddered theatrically as the goblins neared. "I'll never understand you humans." Almost casually, she whipped out a pair of throwing knives, sending them into the two goblins who would have flanked Alex in the same motion. As the remaining five neared, she whipped out her rapier, swiftly killing a third as she leapt over its head.

As for Alex, he was cut up pretty badly by the time he managed to get his hands on one of the goblins' spears. Taking full advantage of his greater strength, he bodily hurled the chittering little monster into his two remaining companions, Deed having taken out another in this time. Grabbing the spear, he whipped the double-edged blade downward, choosing to slice rather than risk getting the spear stuck from a thrust. He managed to slash one of their throats before they were back on their feet. They were still fresher than him, but now they were cautious.

He wasn't.

He knocked a cutlass aside, thrusting deeply between the little monster's ribs. His partner tried to charge him from behind, but he managed a back kick hard enough to send it off its feet. Not bothering to finishing it off, he turned to look at Deed.

She stared at him in shock. Most of the blood on him was his own; goblin blood was almost black in any light. Starting forward, she swiftly ripped strips off his shirt, binding the most obvious and major wounds.

He smiled weakly; he'd managed to keep from getting any cuts above the shoulder. "Couldn't wait to get my clothes off, huh? Shouldn't be too surprised, the way you were acting back in the forest." For the record, the odds are essentially zero that he would have said that if he wasn't currently high on adrenaline and dizzy from blood loss.

Deedlit stiffened at the words, but she could recognize the slurring enough for what it was; he wasn't thinking straight. She continued tearing and tying bandages as quickly as she could manage.

Though she certainly planned on getting back at him for that little snipe. Oh, yes.

Using the spear half as a walking stick, he started dragging himself towards the continuing fight.

Deed flew to his side. "Idiot! You're in no condition to keep fighting. The villagers can handle this themselves."

He turned to glare at her dully. Changes gears awfully fast, doesn't she. "Somehow, I doubt that." Shaking her off, he continued back into the fight. "Make sure no one steps on my bow, would you? I just got it."

Staring at him in mixed shock and anger as he managed to hit some kind of reserve, she finally snatched the bow off the ground, unstringing it and running after him.

She had plenty of vitriol left.

* * *

In some kind of miracle, the fight hadn't been without casualties. Well, at least he hadn't seen any dead villagers yet. Plenty of wounded though.

What surprised him was the number of dead goblins who'd been feathered with arrows. Karl's been busy. He found the mayor running in a panic. "Where's Liara?"

"She...we got separated...she was looking for Karl..."

Right on cue, they heard her scream. Leaning on the mayor's shoulder, he ran for the sound of her scream.

He found her backed against a wall, a rain barrel keeping her from running away. Confronting her was the hobgoblin leader; almost six feet tall and heavily muscled, he would be a LOT harder to kill than his minions were.

As she leaned back, there was a sudden clatter as Karl leapt the barrel to land between her and the hobgoblin. It seemed a bit startled, but realizing that the human was unarmed, he just laughed.

Alex mentally cursed the bowyer for not shooting the hobgoblin like he'd recommended. Then he noticed a mostly empty quiver and a longbow sporting numerous chips and a cut string. So maybe he wasn't being stupid, just heroic. This time he cursed audibly as he noticed the hobgoblin raise his sword. He doubted the badly damaged bow would provide all THAT much protection. Forcing himself forward, he broke into a lumbering trot. He was only about twenty five feet away, and he was still going to get there too late. Hefting the spear, he drew within fifteen feet and hurled the spear.

It should be noted here that he didn't know the first thing about throwing a spear or javelin. So unfortunately, he missed. On the plus side, it didn't hit Karl or Liara. Unfortunately, it didn't land close enough for Karl to grab it and use it to defend himself. Fortunately, it clattered loudly enough to distract the hobgoblin for the crucial seconds Alex needed to reach his current top speed and tackle the damned thing.

Stunned but not out of the fight by any means, the goblin grabbed him and bodily flung the lighter human off him. Karl had been startled as well, but he had the presence to grab the spear and launch it in what he hoped would be the hobgoblin's back. He had better aim, but he hadn't been forgotten; the hobgoblin managed to dodge the spear. Still, it was now close enough that Alex could reach it. In theory anyway. He somehow managed to jump out of the way of his opponent's first slash, diving and rolling over the second to reach the spear. He spun, still in a crouch, trying desperately to slash at the thing's legs.

By this time however, exhaustion was taking its toll, along with adrenaline shock. He over-swung, and was barely able to bring the haft back in time to block the hobgoblin's sword stroke. He was in no position though to handle the shove that sent him sprawling. Grabbing at the spear, he swung again, but almost contemptuously it lopped the spearhead off.

Ghim sighed as he took a stronger grip on his axe. "Suppose I'd better intervene."

Slayn extended a hand to halt the dwarf. "Wait." It was very faint, but there was the barest hint of magic surrounding him; a strange magic, but not a strong one. What was more...

"What are you talking about, waiting! He's going to be killed."

Ghim turned, eyes widening slightly. "What the hell's an elf doing around here?"

"WHAT did you say!"

Sighing, Slayn conceded at least that if they were bickering they'd stay out of the fight. He turned to Karl, shaking his head as the archer frantically began to restring his weapon. Turning back to the youth on the ground, he managed to extend his thoughts. _"That pole will be sufficient. Point it to the heavens. Quickly!"_

Alex started at the sound of voices in his head, but did as he was told.

Slayn bowed his head, whispering his spell. "_Power of all creations, lend him the power to shatter this darkness_."

The hobgoblin paused as light began to glow from the stick in the human's hands. Rather than wait for the full effect of the spell, Alex took his opening, leaping forward and jamming the sharpened stick, ironically sharpened by the goblin's own blow, deep into the unprotected flesh at the abdomen, simultaneously tearing the cutlass out of its hands.

The creature howled in agony, but he wasn't done yet. Injured perhaps, but he still had some fight in him. That evaporated as the human leveled the blade at his neck. His bewitched eyes met the dull, tired, angry eyes of his opponent. Then the anger disappeared in exhaustion as the human turned and started walking away. Raising himself to his feet, he decided to pull out the stake and stab the human to death with it.

Hearing the creak of leather armor, Alex paused. And spun quickly, whipping the sword at the full length of his arm, chopping the hobgoblin's goddamned head off. At which point, subconscious noting that there were no longer any sounds of battle, allowed exhaustion to finally take over. He just barely managed to walk to a nearby relatively clean wall, slump against it, and collapse.

It wasn't until this point that Deed and Ghim realized the fight was over. At which point Deedlit charged his unconscious form just ahead of Liara. The dwarf, taking stock of the headless torso nearby and the condition of it's erstwhile opponent, decided that some investigation was in order.

* * *

Ghim shook his head amusedly as he watched Alex try and get the fussing elf to leave him alone. He'd insisted that Etoh not bother trying to heal him until after he'd gotten the noncombatants healed. Etoh had sighed, but agreed reluctantly. He'd been quick to add that he'd at least be able to see to it that he didn't have any scars. Grinning slightly, Alex had mentioned 'I don't need to be pretty.' He'd done a double-take and seemed a bit taken aback when Deed had asked 'who told you that?' Though he refused to say why.

Slayn joined his old friend at the wall watching the man. Most of the villagers had at one point or another come to try and thank him for what he'd done; he'd been exceedingly grateful when he mayor informed him that he wasn't planning to let anyone thank him until he was properly healed again. Still, there was a great deal of bustle about the village. "What are you thinking?"

Ghim 'hmphed' good naturedly. "Kid's gonna get himself killed at this rate; he needs to learn to pace himself."

Slayn smiled knowingly, prompting another 'hmph.' His smile faded quickly enough. "That enchantment on those goblins bothers me; to affect that many for so long would have needed a powerful sorcerer. I can't help but think that I would have heard of any renegades that powerful."

Ghim looked up. "You thinking there's someone nobody knows about?"

Slayn nodded. "I've considered dispatching a message to the college in Alan, but I can't think who'd be willing to take it."

"Take it yourself, if it's that important."

Slayn smiled a bit. "Perhaps, if he decides to head south."

Ghim started at that. "You planning on traveling with him?"

Slayn shrugged. "I spoke to Karl after the battle; he said that Alex wasn't planning on sticking around much longer; I don't doubt that he'll be leaving soon."

Ghim snorted. He called THAT a battle? "Why leave? He's a damned hero now; you'd think he'd have the sense to milk it for all it's worth."

Slayn just gestured to the clearly annoyed invalid. "Does he look like the type who wants to be hero-worshipped?"

"He seems to have more sense than that."

Slayn chuckled. "If he'll accept my help, I intend to travel with him. Though I'll have a few days at least to prepare; those wounds will need some time even with Etoh's care." He clasped the dwarf's shoulder warmly. "Take care on your own quest."

"What the hell are you talking about? You think I'm gonna let YOU have all the fun? Besides, someone's gotta see that kid learns how to stay alive."

Slayn started. "You'll be joining us as well?"

Ghim snorted. "I need to go somewhere to look; may as well follow you two. Besides, you're a better cook than I am."

Slayn stared for a moment, but chuckled in the end. "It seems we'll have more time to catch up than we thought." He turned to leave. "Oh, one more thing. Has anyone let slip the villagers' plans yet?"

Ghim laughed aloud. "Nope. Hate to see what they'd do to whoever spilled, considering that he'd probably start running now, wounds or not." He shook his head. He'd spent a half hour trying to convince the local blacksmith to let him use the forge. Than he'd mentioned it was for their 'hero.'

They'd been pestering him about needing help ever since.

He almost felt sorry for the kid.

* * *

Etoh hummed quietly to himself as he rinsed the bandages. Most of the villagers had foregone treatment, insisting that Alex be healed first. It confused the daylights out of him; he didn't remember the villagers being this kind or understanding before; Parn had made it clear both when he first left years ago and just days earlier how he'd been treated. Still, it was probably for the better.

Though watching Karl beat the living tar out of Zact had certainly been...therapeutic.

He'd been telling the truth about scarring; he didn't really care about the marks, but scarring would go deep and slow him down, leading to severe aches and pains later in life. This was actually taking a bit longer than if he'd just accelerated the process, but it was still faster than purely natural healing. He shook his head at the sleeping man; the healing took a lot out of the injured, meaning that they spent most of their time asleep. Personally, he thought it was deliberate to ensure that the priests didn't have to deal with finicky patients any more than they absolutely had to.

Deedlit sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, watching him. In a moment of lucidity, he'd apologized for his comment, citing blood loss. She'd accepted, and proceeded to tease him even worse until he'd finally just rolled over and feigned sleep. She giggled. The battle two days ago had been the closest thing to fun that she could consider a battle; no casualties went a long way towards that.

Still, it was clear that something odd was happening. He'd shown up, and all of a sudden a marauding clan of bandits fell under some mind control spell (she'd overheard Slayn earlier; those big ears aren't just for show) and attacked the village he was staying in.

Whether he realized it or not, he was in some way responsible for what had occurred; he was shifting things as he went in some way.

He was making things interesting. That was enough for her. That he was also cute and fun to tease were merely benefits as far as she was concerned. Firming her decision, she decided to go glean the forest for what she'd need.

Etoh watched her leave as he dried his hands. He'd never seen an elf before, and had to admit that she was a bit hard to get along with; you had to make allowances for the wildly different culture, but once you'd managed that she was quite fun. He sighed. He hoped their paths would cross again, but he had no idea if his patient and she were fated to meet.

He needed practice, and this poor boy seemed to provide a lot of practice when it came to healing. He also seemed to attract fights a lot, giving Etoh plenty of practice with some of his other skills.

Pharis (or Falis, if you prefer) was not a god of destiny, but he was a god who followed it, and Etoh firmly believed that it was no accident that their paths had crossed.

Perhaps it was not the will of Pharis, but it was clearly providence. He figured it would take a few hours before Alex was ready for another meal and bout of healing. Just enough time for him to begin his own preparations.

* * *

Alex grumbled quietly as he walked off, heading south. The villagers had apparently been planning some kind of festival/banquet to celebrate the victory over the goblins, one where he was supposed to be guest of honor.

Back in the US, he'd been to a banquet once. After the first hour (or maybe a fourth of the speeches), he'd been contemplating stabbing himself in the eye with a fork to get out of the rest.

No way was he sticking around for that.

Liara's mother had been surprisingly understanding; she'd given him his old clothes as well as a new set that would blend in a bit better. She'd shyly admitted that her original plan had been to give him them as a gift at the banquet; apparently there were quite a few who wanted to thank him. Confused the hell out of him; they'd sent Parn off with a stoning, or would have if he hadn't left in the middle of the night.

She'd scurried off to the blacksmith's, returning with the man in tow. He'd apparently been one of the people who he'd saved personally early on, shooting one of the goblins off his back. He'd given Alex a spear, apologizing the whole time that he didn't have a proper sword. She had then presented him with a satchel full of food that various women of the village had prepared for him. Still confused but at least properly equipped, he'd been planning to leave immediately when the mayor intercepted him. He'd given him a full quiver, pointing out that there was no way he'd have a chance to retrieve his arrows from the goblins if he insisted on sneaking off.

Which brought him to the present; he was tired, grouchy, his still-healing cuts itched like hell, and he was leaving without any of the companions who were supposed to pull his fat out of the fire on various occasions.

Things could have been better.

"It seems I was right."

He started as Slayn rose from beneath a tree. If he was going to have any chance of surviving around here, he needed to start paying more attention to his surroundings. "Am I disturbing you?"

Slayn smiled as he put a small leather-bound book away. "We were hoping you'd be willing to come with us."

"We?" He started again. What he'd originally thought was a small boulder turned out to be Ghim's torso.

The dwarf sat up, tossing a bundle at him. "You expect to live, you'd better learn to use that thing properly. Which I intend to see to."

"And I have no intention of finding out you died after I went through all the trouble of healing you."

He turned to stare at Etoh and... "Deedlit?"

The elf just smirked at him. No explanation for her presence was offered, and it was clear she felt that she needed none. Imperious, self-satisfied Deed was nothing like he'd expected.

And he still hadn't gotten rid of that stupid crush.

Finally, he just sank to a crouch and started laughing. For all his worries, for all his attempted machinations (pathetic as they were), things were going in one direction. He sobered quickly. There were quite a few things that he remembered in the canon that he didn't particularly agree with. Still, he let it slide.

He'd made some changes so far. He'd just have to figure out how to make bigger ones.

To be continued...

(1) - Jared Ornstead, AKA Skysaber, and Gregg Sharp, AKA Metronome both post on and at Just search for their respective pen names; they're well worth the read.

(2) - I'm going by the assumption that like most medieval lands, it would have been considered scandalous to show off a great deal of skin; there are reports of renaissance men going wild at the sight of an ankle.


	3. Chapter 2: In Which IT Begins to hit

This is my disclamation.

It needs no explanation.

So sit in contemplation

Of my current defamation

Of a writer's orchestration

Of words.

_**Chronicles of Murphy: Book One**_

_**Book of the Accursed**_

Thoughts

**Chapter Two**

In which IT begins to hit the fan

At the moment, Alex was in the north of Lodoss, moving south through Alania. Due to that tiny degree of omniscience that someone gains when traveling into a world they always thought was just a story, he currently had some idea of what would be going on in Marmo.

Marmo. For those of you who may not be all that familiar with Record of the Lodoss War, I'll explain. For those who are, just skim over this part if you'd like.

Lodoss was created at the end of The Golden Age ruled over by the gods (ever notice how the golden age is always already past?) Anyway, the end of this age occured as Falaris led an army of a thousand fallen gods and ancient dragons against Pharis, the supreme god of light. For all that they were gods and technically immortal, it was said that they died in this battle that rent the earth asunder.

The final duel of this battle took place between Marfa, goddess of creation, and Kardis, goddess of destruction. It has been said that Lodoss was simply a by-product of this fight, as it reached a fever pitch that sundered a small continent from the northern continent of Alecrast. The truth of the matter was that Kardis lost, and rather than give her opponent the satisfaction of a bloodless victory, she cast a curse upon her own blood, so that it blighted all it touched. Rather than let this curse engulf the great landmass of Alecrast, Marfa smote the land, driving the continent south where the curse could be contained. However, she knew somehow that the curse would not end there.

And so, in a desperate attempt to save Lodoss from what she could, she further struck a southern chunk of the island, driving it five miles south of the main mass. And thus, while all of Lodoss suffers under Kardis's bane, Marmo suffers a thousand times worse. For if Lodoss is the spiritual equivalent of a latrine, than Marmo is the feces within. Ground zero of the curse. Most damned of all the damned places across Forceria.

You need to understand this if you're to have any hope of understanding the rationale of your typical denizen of Marmo. Goblins may be a nuisance across Lodoss, but on Marmo they're the most common creature, and only barely subservient to the wolf-like kobolds, ape-like ogres, and humans of Marmo. And while a goblin from Lodoss proper may run from danger, the creatures of Marmo are so constantly pissed and miserable that death is often preferable to what they now awaits them.

Having seen the series, Alex had some idea of what was going on there at the moment. However, things were about to take a turn on the island that he would not have foreseen.

* * *

Ashram didn't bother to walk among his troops anymore. They knew what they had to do; he'd managed over the years to find ways to instill discipline even in goblins. He would lead them in battle, he would lead them to death or victory, and they would follow. Because virtually everything in Marmo fears something. They feared Ashram, and would not have been ashamed to admit to this.

What was different about Ashram was that he was quite possibly the only person in all of Marmo who they also respected. He would not tolerate a slip in discipline, but he would tolerate even less the loss of a single soldier for no good reason. Lacking the nigh-unstoppable demonic blade of the emperor, he'd been forced to learn the hard way to ration his troops. Dead troops might be necessary to win a battle, but dead troops couldn't fight anymore.

It was particularly vital for a conqueror to remember that. Ashram had served briefly as a spy on the mainland; only humans could accomplish anything as spies. Elves were good at watching and assassination (useful at times, though still limited), but dark elves were instantly recognized and usually killed for their troubles. Having watched the reactions of the commoners, he knew that an invading army of goblins led by humans would never be able to recruit from among the defeated. Lost troops were gone permanently; he would have no choice in this campaign but to win as bloodlessly as possible; skill on the field could only make up for so many casualties.

Which worried him to no end. With luck, they could win this. Ashram believed in luck. He just didn't believe it was intelligent to rely on it solely.

He growled under his breath as he watched from the battlements. Portents and omens from Narse to the side, he felt they needed more time to swell the ranks. They weren't ready for this war.

"An auspiscious sign, so many warriors."

Ashram was far too schooled to allow his disgust to show. Priests in general he felt were a nuisance, like strange tools. They had a use, but save for that particular job they were just so much dead weight. Priests of Kardis annoyed him even more. In his opinion, the dogma of the mad goddess was Waste. Waste lives, waste land, waste materials. Because sooner or later they'd get wasted; why wait?

Wagnard though...he hated Wagnard with nothing less than a passion. The man was half mad himself; he refused to live in the material world. The eventual fate of the soul, divine providence...Ashram believed in them, but felt that such things should be worried about AFTER one had taken care of the more immediate concerns of staying alive and keeping one's men alive. Wagnard only cared about the divine will of Falaris and Kardis. He sometimes wondered just how badly the night god had wanted to win that he had allowed Kardis into the ranks.

The red-clad priest smirked as he surveyed the men. Many would die, rising gloriously to the feet of Kardis, to go on and kill until nothing remained. They themselves would be the chosen in the final battles when the Dark ones finally defeated the Light, and blessed oblivion would finally claim them.

He envied the dead.

"What do you want?"

And at times, he hated the living.

Ashram was a trial. An enormously talented man, one knew within moments that he was born for greatness; even Wagnard would grudgingly admit he had a charisma of sorts. He could have turned his hand to ruling, to war, to the arts, and he would likely have proven unstoppable in his rise to the top.

And he used that formidable will, talent, and leadership to stymie the red priest at every possible turn. Frustrating, but it just meant his final service to the Mad One would be all the more satisfying.

"I'm curious as to your opinion of this campaign."

Ashram didn't bother to face the priest. "I will fight as Lord Beld commands."

Wagnard smirked. "And with such a powerful ally...the Gray Witch herself has seen fit to aid our cause."

Ashram growled in his throat. He wondered for a moment if he was trying to play the two off each other or seeking a potential ally against either possible threat. "Chaos follows the Gray Witch." He wouldn't vocalize his mistrust, but somehow he knew. The witch would bring nothing but harm to Marmo in the end.

Putting the black knight and commander not merely of the Marmo forces, but of their true loyalty, in a position such that he might be willing to ally himself with someone trustworthy against the witch.

* * *

Alex sneezed violently. This was particularly bad, as he was at the moment learning how to handle an axe the hard way; namely by having Ghim beat the techniques into him. The bundle he'd been given was an axe made completely out of steel. Well, the core of the haft was wood, to help reduce the weight, but the damn thing still weighed almost ten pounds for all that it wasn't all that big. Oh, he could see quite a few advantages of a weapon that wouldn't get cut in half if used to block a sword swing, but it was still far from the easiest weapon to wield.

Anyway, the sneeze was just the opening Ghim needed to rush forward, switch the butt of the axe for its blades, and proceed to knock the wind out of him for the third time today.

Coughing and gasping, Alex fell to his knees, glaring at Ghim. Between pained breathes, he managed to get out, "you DO realize that I've never used this thing before, right? I mean, it hasn't escaped your notice that I'm not a particularly short or stocky individual, has it? Maybe a dwarf's weapon and style isn't the best idea."

Ghim snorted in disdain as he whacked his battle axe into a nearby log, seating himself beside it. "Nothing wrong with the way a dwarf fights; you've just got to figure out how not to use those spindles you call arms like that."

Alex glared right back. The dwarf was useful, but he would have liked him a LOT more if they weren't spending so much time beating each other. Ghim had not been amused when in frustration Alex had finally bound their axes just long enough to kick him in the stomach. That was when the rounds of knocking-out-the-other-guy's-wind had started.

Unfortunately, he didn't have all that much choice at the moment, at least not if he intended to bother learning how to fight. Slayn didn't know jack about hand-to-hand, and Deed refused to teach him elvish techniques. Granted, it was largely to spite her that Ghim had agreed to teach him, but he still would have preferred lessons that didn't involve large bruises. Etoh had offered to teach him staff techniques; that had ended when it became clear that Alex was actually better than he was already.

And then there was Karl...

For some reason, he'd chosen to follow them; he'd caught up around mid-afternoon, two bows slung over his back and a bundle holding nearly two hundred arrows slung over his shoulder. While he was eagerly teaching Alex more about shooting and maintaining his equipment, he knew as much about fighting as Slayn.

No choice but to grit it out and deal with the vicious little dwarf.

But no more today. Sighing wearily, he started off to find a convenient tree to set up a target again. Ghim agreed with his standing on the 'heroism' of archery; he approved wholeheartedly of the practice. He just didn't practice it himself, meaning it was the only time of the day that he got any time to himself.

Hanging the rope and wood target from a branch, he paced off fifty yards away before turning to start shooting. The tricks Deed and Karl had taught him had improved him with surprising speed; he could hit the target twenty five shots out of thirty pretty easily. He figured he'd add on another ten yards distance when he managed thirty out of thirty.

First things first though. Rather than stringing the forty-pounder he could actually use, he dug out the seven-foot recurve, and straining, managed to string it on the first try. In that at least it was getting easier. Taking a deep breath, he set his 'marker' arrow along the bow and began straining against it. He couldn't actually draw it yet, but by marking on the arrow how far he got, he could tell that little by little, day by day, he was actually making progress. At this rate, he might be able to fully draw it within six months. So maybe a quarter of inch further every day.

"I still don't see why you even bother; what could you possibly be shooting at that would need that kind of penetrating power?"

Alex didn't bother to answer as he continued straining against the bow. On a whim, he'd sat down once, set his feet in the handle and leaned back to draw it with both hands. So it could be drawn, it was just really, really, REALLY hard to. Forcing the arrow back that extra eighth of an inch, he forced himself to let the string slack gradually. He'd just let go once, and the string had shattered under the strain. He'd probably end up having to string it with steel cable or something, or dragon sinew; something stronger than plant fiber, that was for sure.

Sighing, he set it aside. He forced himself to draw it three times a day; with luck he'd get strong enough to manage it in time for Shooting Star. "I thought I'd go try and kill an Ancient Dragon."

Karl laughed. "Not too many of those left; they'll be long dead by the time you get strong enough to draw that monstrosity."

Alex shrugged as he proceeded to draw again. "You never know; I'll bet I can manage to draw this thing by the end of the year."

Karl was silent at that. Alex had actually shown him his method for keeping track; he WAS getting stronger, and faster than he'd ever seen anyone. He wasn't all that strong, but the rate was concerning. He shook his head. "You can't even shoot left-handed; why bother trying to draw?"

Alex sighed as he finished his left-hand set. THAT was progressing a lot more slowly, but he figured he'd catch up sooner or later. "I'll worry about shooting when I can draw. Besides, it'll look odd walking around with one arm twice as big as the other." Unstringing the bow was a chore; he had to let it go slowly or he'd be out of another string. Stringing his usable bow was almost a godsend; it felt light as a feather after that.

"Another thing; why not warm up before that thing? Shoot your lighter bow, then try the big one."

Alex shook his head. "That actually slows you down; by the time you try going for the heavier weight, the one that'll actually build some strength, you're too tired to get anything from it. You start as heavy as you can manage, then go for the lighter weight. It's called plyometric strength training."

Karl blink-blinked. "ply-what?"

"Plyometrics. I read a book about it by this guy named Pavel Tsatsuline (1). He used to train the guards and special agents for the ruling family of his homeland. When he stopped that, he started teaching other people."

Karl shook his head. "That actually works?"

"I'm getting stronger, aren't I?" He frowned slightly as Karl turned to leave. He still couldn't figure out why the archer had joined them in the first place. From what he'd heard, Liara had to be pried off his arm after he risked his life for her. You'd think he'd take advantage while he was there. Shrugging, he picked up his bow and nocked an arrow.

The trick of relaxed focus was getting easier; with his now-improved eyesight it was even easier. He wasn't really bothering to aim for the center of the target anymore; just hitting it was enough for him. Confident in his accuracy, he raised and drew in a single motion.

whew..."

He jerked at the sudden slither of air on his ear, but somehow managed to still hit the target. All of a half inch from the edge, but a hit was a hit. Biting back the curse he so desperately wanted to use, he turned to glare at his side. "...Deed, will you CUT THAT OUT!"

She giggled. "You're getting better. Two days ago you would have missed it by a foot."

He stared at her for a moment. Finally, shaking his head, he just turned and nocked a new arrow. This time she chose to start lightly stroking his forearm as he steadied the bow. With warning however, he was at least able to ignore it. His next hit was within eight inches of the bulls-eye.

Sighing, she managed another of those odd, floating leaps into the trees over his head. "I don't understand you at all. I can manage to understand most humans a little bit, but you are a particular puzzle."

"Normal is over-rated," he said curtly as he sent a fourth and fifth arrow into the target in quick succession. After four and a half days of listening to her gripe at the dwarf (he was beginning to suspect it was more out of boredom than anything else), he was finally losing his attraction to her. Prettiness only went so far, after all.

Her habit of flirting with Karl (also most likely out of boredom) had nothing to do with his irritation. Nor did he feel the slightest bit of satisfaction at her lack of success.

And don't question a marksman-in-training.

She sighed as she watched. He insisted on fighting in nothing more than a tunic; he refused to wear the long-sleeved wool undershirts he'd been given, stating it felt like wearing a pricker bush. She had to admit that it was a bit fascinating to watch the muscles flex under his tanned skin as he drew and loosed. She liked watching him shoot. She just wished he'd come up with something else for her to watch. "I just don't see why you're doing all this. For all that you claim to like Slayn and Etoh, you insist on dragging them thirty miles every day; not everyone can comfortably manage that you know. And all you do during the one break you give them for a meal and wind is fight or shoot. You make it seem like you're going to war or something."

"I am going to war."

That took her aback. "With who?"

Alex sighed as he lowered the bow. He was starting to think that Karl was right; it was getting exhausting firing a full thirty shots AFTER killing himself on that stupid bow. If he did without, he could probably have shot a full quiver's worth into the target a while ago. "I'm not planning on starting a fight. I just have this...this feeling that something bad is going to happen soon."

"Like what?"

He shook his head. "How long has Marmo been quiet?"

She started. "Marmo? Why on earth do you want to know about that godforsaken place?"

"How long?"

She sighed. "Almost thirty years; no one has gone there since the Six Heroes slew the demon."

He shook his head. "And Beld became the ruler after killing the current one. Thirty years of quiet as a man who owns a sword capable of smashing armies solidifies his control."

"What's your point?"

"Marmo's not all that big; do you really think he's been taking all that time just getting a horde of goblins to quit harassing him?" He shook his head as his last arrow thudded into the target. He'd only missed twice today; he'd probably be at seventy yards within a week. "Beld does NOT like King Fahn; even I know that much. There's going to be a fight between those two sooner or later; you don't think it's going to be one on one, do you?"

"So? That fight could be years from now for all you know. That's even assuming you're right. Why torture yourself now? Have some fun for a change."

Alex turned to study her for a moment. She wasn't really a good actress; it was part of why she'd been fun in the series, he guessed. She was clearly honest with her emotions; she didn't have to emote. And at the moment, she was emoting severe anxiety. "You know something." A statement, not a question. A gamble, really, but one that had hit its mark; she flinched. "There's some kind of feeling of unrest; the spirits can feel it, and so can you." He sighed, shaking his head as she leapt out of the tree next to him. "Somehow, I think it's going to be sooner rather than later. And I think you feel that way too."

She turned away, leaving him to retrieve his arrows. It was sometimes particularly disturbing how knowledgeable he was. "That still doesn't explain why you have to fight so hard."

He paused, having taken down the target itself. Why him? He had little doubt that he could find Parn and nudge him into the place he was supposed to occupy. Why was he fighting so hard over this? I mean, really?

Further thought was cut off as the sound of underbrush crackling underfoot reached their ears. Stuffing his two loose arrows into his hip quiver, he spun the target into a bush, listening carefully, trying to judge the path. There... He grabbed the target and slipped behind the tree trunk, yanking out an arrow and nocking it. They should be passing by...soon...

Sure enough, a trio of lanky, furry creatures started jogging past. Kobolds, if he remembered the name right. Drawing his bow, he drew a bead on the lead wolf-man, this time aiming carefully. Still, they were only twenty feet away, if that much when he shot the first in the back of the neck.

The other two spun at the sight of their leader dying, glaring at his killer. Still, regardless of how intelligent they were, instinct was enough to tell them that at least one of them would die if they tried rushing him.

Deed landed next to him. "Impetuous, aren't you." She gasped as a faint whoosh reached her ears. Tearing her sword from its sheath, she managed to deflect the throwing knife that had been aimed for her. The other struck its intended target. Alex quietly blessed whoever might be listening, as he didn't seem to be the target. Then cursed in the same breath as he realized that his bowstring was.

Grinning, the kobolds drew short cutlasses and began loping forward. Alex was dimly aware of Deedlit saying something about him not being a match for a dark elf. Humiliating, but true. Still, his first thought was that he had apparently reached episode two right on schedule, and fortress Myce was going to get burned down in just a few hours.

Further speculation ceased as he dropped his bow, yanked free his axe (lesson one; never leave your weapon behind), and prepared to try and keep from getting killed.

* * *

Deedlit smiled grimly at the expression on Alex's face. "You're hurt..." Finally, some sign of caring.

At least this particular dark elf hadn't bothered to poison his throwing blades. Clearly he expected skill to be enough to deal with anything. She just wished she didn't agree with him at the moment. "If we don't run now, we'll..." her voice trailed off as the elf materialized before their eyes. "Too late."

Etoh's mace spearing the earth between them was actually a VERY welcome diversion.

"Playing without us?"

The dwarf was less so. "And I suppose this looks like 'play' to a dwarf?"

Ghim smirked. "I suppose kobolds are rather poor playmates."

The dark elf visibly scowled. The dwarf would be a problem; they were notoriously hard to kill. The two tall humans were probably enough to account for a kobold, the mage another. If he struck fast enough, neutralized the mage now, they could still kill them all but...

...there was no real point. It would be fun, but unacceptably dangerous. He had a mission.

He simply invoked shadow spirits, vanishing. The kobolds took the hint and loped away.

Alex sighed as he sheathed the axe. "Where'd they come from? Kobolds I could believe, but I didn't think that dark elves showed up anywhere but Marmo itself."

Karl shrugged as he examined Alex's tossed-down bow, ignoring the lecturing tone from Etoh. At least the wood was unscored; he kept enough spare strings that there wouldn't be any problem repairing it.

At least things were calm now.

Which is why Alanian soldiers chose to arrive, oh-so-conveniently now that there was no fighting.

Karl and Etoh were overjoyed. They were the only ones.

* * *

"What did we do!"

"Shut up. You can try and sort this out after the Captain gets back from Allan."

Deed sighed. "I wanted some excitement, but this is ridiculous."

Alex grinned nastily. "Ancient Chinese Curse states, 'may you live in interesting times.' Do you agree or disagree?"

She just glared at him.

Karl had no intentions of letting it go. "We're Alanian citizens! You can't just throw us in here!"

"Save your breath."

They spun at the unexpected voice. Lounging in his pile of straw, Wood smirked at them. His scar-seamed face made the smirk particularly effective. "You can scream until you're blue in the face if you want, but those tight-asses won't pass gas without their captain's approval."

"Don't assume we're like you," Deed snapped.

Curiosity shone in his eyes at the sound of a female voice. "Well, as I live and breathe! A lovely little elf wench."

"WENCH!"

Slayn managed to calm her down, assuring her that once the captain returned that it would be clearly a misunderstanding, and they'd all be released.

Wood managed to keep from poking any holes in his reassurances, but it was a serious test of will.

* * *

Ashram frowned. "Six travelers, you say?"

The elf nodded. "Four humans, an elf, and a dwarf."

Ashram's eyes narrowed in thought. High elves? Are they making a move?

"They are being held in Fortress Myce," Karla's voice smoothly interjected. She smiled smugly at the black knight. "It is your duty to remove even the tiniest pebble which might impede Lord Beld's progress, is it not? Is that not the duty of the captain of the Royal Guards?"

Ashram didn't scowl at her. He never scowled. It didn't mean he never felt like it.

Personally, he felt this whole scouting foray into Alania was a waste of time; Kadomos was a career politician, and wouldn't dare oppose Marmo if he thought he could weasel his way out of it. No, that was unfair. He'd avoid the conflict because he didn't want to see Alanians die. For that, he'd hang the rest of Lodoss out to dry.

A stupid move, in Ashram's opinion. Marmo didn't make allies with nations, they made killing grounds.

Still, his men were getting irritable, and the fortress could be an obstacle. Razing it to the ground would be an excellent way to relieve tensions. It would also help prepare some of the new recruits for what was to come. They wouldn't be ready until a loss of some kind, but for now it would work.

He turned to relay the orders to his officers; the fight would begin soon.

The dark elf looked up expectantly. Receiving a nod from his commander, he spoke. "My lord...the elf. You will see to it that no one else interferes?"

Ashram allowed himself a smile. Elf men were much easier to deal with than the women; they'd been beaten into submission by their ruling females for so long that they relished every little freedom that he allowed them. Good for loyalty.

"Do as you wish. I make no promises however; you'll just have to kill him first."

* * *

Etoh was tending to Deed's wound. Slayn had managed to sweet-talk one of the guards into giving him a candle to read by; no one was entirely sure how. Ghim was eying the cell's walls and doors; most likely looking for weak points if the captain decided to be obstinate. Karl was arguing with Deed about the soldiers, insisting that they were simply being cautious, that there was nothing wrong with being an Alanian soldier. Deed kept bringing the conversation back to Alex, trying to get him to agree that the soldiers were being idiots.

So far, the only words Alex had said were his three requests for a different cell.

At least until they'd gotten into their argument so deeply that they were ignoring him.

"So, what are you in for?"

Wood shrugged. "Bad luck. Alania's in for a bit of bad luck itself. Kannon too. Thought it best to hightail it to another kingdom." He pushed himself into a sitting position. "I decided to build up my own little war chest and...well, let's just say that some people took exception." He sighed theatrically. "Guess Pharis just wasn't on my side."

"Pharis doesn't protect thieves," Etoh stated matter-of-factly.

Wood laughed aloud. "So Pharis is protecting us with all his might? Doing a lousy job of it, if you ask me."

"What do you mean?" Slayn asked, not bothering to look up from his book.

Wood stared at them incredulously. "You haven't heard? Marmo troops have landed."

THAT snapped them out of it.

Deed's shocked expression didn't spend much time on Wood; she stared at Alex, and more importantly, at his complete lack of surprise. He knew...he knew all along. Is he...

Wood continued blithely on, years of prison having given him nothing but contempt for soldiers (who usually worked as jail-keepers). "It's all because Alanian soldiers are even more pathetic than Kannons," he stated, just loudly enough to reach the ears of the guards. "So I figured I'd head for Valis this time around."

"When'd they land?" Alex asked quietly.

Wood shrugged. "Officially, they haven't landed yet."

"So it's still small; the kings are keeping it quiet to make sure no one finds out and starts panicking." He snorted in disgust. "Like keeping a wound secret until you're on the verge of bleeding to death. Idiots."

Further speculation was cut off as the door to the dungeon boomed open, admitting Capt. Jebra; tall, blonde, and square-built, he looked the part of a career soldier. "So these are the spies?"

"Yes sir!"

Karl gaped. "Spies? Us!"

Indignation was clear in Etoh's voice. "We're nothing more than simple travelers."

Jebra 'hmphed' loudly. "Light!" Suspicion dissolved into shock as the dutifully raised torch revealed Etoh's garb. "You!" Swallowing thickly, Jebra leaned forward. _"Lauma adonia moil de Pharis."_

Etoh smiled in pleased surprise. He bowed slightly. _"Moiros lahm."_

Jebra's eyes widened further. "You are a priest of Pharis." Stepping back, he bowed deeply. "Please, my humblest apologies for this inconvenience."

More than one startled look reached Etoh, but he simply smiled. His god had shown him a way out.

After the revelations of their identities, Jebra couldn't get them out of their cells fast enough. Barked orders had a spare barracks cleared of extra bunks and fitted out as a private room for them; a small room intended for a military scribe was cleared nearby for Deed. Their belongings were placed nearby, and they were ushered gently into the meeting room.

"I really can't apologize enough for that dreadful mix-up," Jebra continued. He'd been doing little but apologize since he'd finished accommodating them.

Etoh managed to be gracious about it. "Please, it was an honest mistake. Your men had a duty to see to this outpost's safety."

Slayn managed once again to quietly steer the conversation into a more comfortable subject. "It's quite understandable. That fellow, Woodchuck informed us of your problems."

"Woodchuck? Oh, that thief."

* * *

Wood sneezed violently. "Damn it all to hell, what did I do that was so bad?"

* * *

Jebra sighed. "So far, there haven't been any attacks, but certainly landings have begun from the island of Marmo."

"Couldn't it just be routine scouting?"

Jebra shook his head at Karl. "Marmo don't do things by half-degrees. Human spies and scouts keep tabs on us at all times; they have for years. For any troop landings to begin, it can only be a precursor to one thing."

"War," Ghim stated with a grim finality.

Jebra nodded somberly. "I only made my report a few days ago; it will take time for the King and his chief vassals to come to any consensus."

A call came from the lower window. "Capt. Jebra!"

He turned, walking to the window. "What is it?"

"The troops are awaiting your inspection!"

He nodded. "I'll be down shortly." He turned back. "Would you care to watch? I'm afraid we don't have anything else in the way of entertainment. My men are soldiers, not bards."

Slayn graciously accepted before they could come up with any excuse. Alex wondered idly if he was always this much of a diplomat, or if it only developed to meet the situation. He mentally started as he thought back to the past few days; Slayn always managed to ease the tensions just before they reached critical point. Alex could do it to some degree, but usually only around people he'd known for years. Slayn was doing it with people he hadn't known for a week yet. Alex found himself looking on the sorcerer with new respect.

In the courtyard, two of the soldiers were going at it hammer-tongs, sword and shield clattering with blocked strokes, giving off a characteristic shiver-hiss of steel on steel as they bound hilts. Jebra smiled proudly. "What do you think? We gather here every night to hone our skills." His grin turned somewhat sardonic. "Alania has always prized scholastic achievement over all else. The men of this outpost...no, all the men of our military are the men who are too strong to fit into normal Alanian society."

"Keeping all your violent men in one place, hmm?" Deed quipped with a small smile.

"Deed!"

Jebra laughed good-naturedly. "No, no, she's quite right."

Ghim privately approved. Not just about keeping the 'violent men' together; but of the training exercises themselves. The sense was off men viewing a wrestling bout or an arena fight; cheers and bellows of encouragement kept the men from backing down. It kept them coming back.

As for 'all the violent men in one place...' These men needed something to live for, some place where they could honestly feel like they weren't worthless.

Jebra eyed the tallest of them curiously. He was actually a bit shorter than him; the slender archer with the odd hair must have topped six feet. His gaze was critical at times, approving at others as he watched. "Care to have a bout?"

Alex wasn't the only one to start at the request. "Me? I don't know the first thing about using a sword."

Could have fooled me. Jebra smiled. "Care to go against me?"

Alex managed not to wince. He'd challenged his martial arts instructor to a sparring match once. He'd thought he'd acquitted himself quite well, until his teacher accidentally kicked him hard enough to knock the wind out of him. He was positive it was an accident, in hindsight anyway. If he'd wanted to do that, he would have sent Alex sprawling in the first ten seconds. Somehow, he had a feeling this would be similar, with the very important difference being that he and his opponent would both be holding deadly weapons. "Thanks, no."

Ghim snorted. "Don't see why he'd even bother. He wouldn't last ten seconds."

"So you keep reminding me," Alex quipped. Still, he said it without rancor; he had the sense to recognize when he was outclassed.

Jebra sighed. It might have been fun; the reach difference would have forced him to rethink his strategy. If nothing else, he would have enjoyed the 'new blood.' "What about you?"

Karl looked, if possible, even more startled. "Me? I...uh..."

Alex winced. Karl was worse than HE was, which was saying something. (Hmmm. Also says something about your average goblin, doesn't it?). Unfortunately, he hadn't yet mastered the art of self-depreciation. Sighing, he turned to try and find a sword and shield that wouldn't weigh him down more than it had to. "On second thought, I could use the exercise."

Moments later, he found himself facing off against a career soldier. Wondering WHY he was letting himself get into this, he set himself for the initial blow.

In the original, Parn had charged full out and started flailing away. Alex was quite a bit less aggressive, so Jebra made the first move, charging full out with a vicious swing. Alex caught the blow on his shield, and staggered as he felt the bones of his forearm shudder. He hadn't expected the captain to go full out so quickly. Bracing himself, he took the next blow squarely, but was defenseless to the follow-up shield bash. He stumbled, and in a stroke of improvisation, he dropped to one leg and lashed out at Jebra's ankles with a kick.

Jebra was already jumping back, but the kick managed to catch his forward leg. Stumbling, he still managed to regain his feet as the soldiers started howling 'foul play.' His eyes narrowed. Rather than try to press the momentary advantage, Alex had pulled back, settling into a stronger stance, preparing for the strength of the blows he anticipated. Defensive fighter, not an aggressor. Though the bow should have been a clue; not the weapon of a man who plans to get up close and personal. Jebra charged again, though not as fast or hard. His blow was caught on the shield, though the captain noticed it buckling under control; he was keeping just relaxed enough to absorb and control the blows. Alex's follow-up blow bounced off shield; again, a deliberately relaxed grip kept him from losing control. He learns quickly.

Deedlit winced. "Painful to watch, isn't it?" It was obvious that Jebra was holding back his full strength, and Alex was still getting trounced.

Alex gritted his teeth as Jebra struck again, and once more. The next blow he managed to anticipate, and rather than simply taking it on the shield, he struck with his left arm, forcing the sword away slightly. He swung wide, his blow caught on the shield. However, Jebra was still bringing his sword back from the earlier deflection, leaving his right side slightly open. Alex punched at him, hoping to strike with the shield edge. Jebra managed to yank his shield over in time to block, but it still managed to stagger him a bit. Sensing a small advantage, Alex went on the attack.

Unfortunately, Alex lacked anywhere near the experience necessary to recognize a bait. Having decided he had the boy's measure, Jebra braced himself, moving with the attack; one stroke on the shield, second on the shield; he abruptly stepped into the third blow, catching it on his sword and binding the hilt. With a practiced ease, he lowered his center of gravity, and bracing his shield into his opponent's stomach, he heaved, sending both literally flying through the air.

Alex landed with a graceless grunt of pain, rising to find Jebra's sword at his throat. The captain's eyes were hard as he gazed at the boy. The loss was no surprise; he'd known flat out that Alex was his inferior. What surprised him was that he didn't look defeated. If he'd thought it worth it, he would have kept fighting, outclassed or no. His eyes softening, he removed the sword point, bending to help the taller man to his feet. "Alania could use fighters like you. You've got some potential."

Alex winced as he stood; his head ached now that the adrenaline had worn off. "I'm not Alanian, you know."

Jebra shrugged as two men replaced them in the ring. "They disapprove of that kick, you know."

Alex shrugged. "Hey, I thought you were fighting for keeps. I'm not going to follow any rules that might get me killed."

Jebra smiled thoughtfully. "Good policy, at least for war."

Alex sighed, leaning against one of the courtyard walls as the bouts continued. He waved off Etoh's offered treatment; he was just bruised a little bit. Ghim smirked at him as he took a place at the same wall. Alex sank into a crouch, his knees resting in the crooks of his arms. "Well, at least I never dropped the sword. One of your lessons is taking effect."

Ghim bellowed in laughter. He was loud enough to distract the fighters, though one had the presence of mind to use the chance to disarm his opponent.

The fights went on for quite a while after that; Karl did finally accept a challenge and got his rear handed to him on a platter. Slayn managed to cajole Ghim into accepting a challenge, and managed to beat three of the soldiers in a row before he decided not to bother any further.

Alex was just about ready for some sleep, though unfortunately he had a feeling tonight Ashram and Karla would mount the attack. He really wished he'd taken the time to catch a nap; those thirty-mile-a-day marches he'd mandated were starting to take their toll. Still, he'd at least try to conserve some energy.

Jebra's voice interrupted as he rose to leave. "I noticed that you were an archer of sorts."

Alex shrugged. "I'm better with a bow than I am with a sword. Even if it's not saying much."

Some of the listening soldiers laughed. A few had tried to intimidate him during the other bouts, going out of their way to point out that Jebra was holding back. Alex had just mentioned that it was the only reason he'd lasted through that first blow.

Jebra whispered a few instructions to his aide-de-campe, then nodded to another. "Care to show us what you can do?" Unspoken was the implication he was going to redeem himself.

Sensing that a refusal would likely spark another bout (though probably with someone who wouldn't hold back from beating his brains in), Alex was quick to agree. He regretted it quickly.

One of the soldiers brought to the shorter bow (he was quite thankful that at the very least he wasn't going to have to try and use the 'Monster' in front of them) and his quiver. Unfortunately, he hadn't thought to bring the target; so he only had one arrow left.

Worse, rather than providing a different target, the aide-de-camp instead brought out a ten foot lance and stabbed the blade into the ground. Jebra smiled. "There's your target."

Alex stared at him. He coudn't...nope. He was serious. "...how close do I get to shoot?"

Jebra shrugged. "As close as you need to be."

Groaning, Alex stepped up to the target, preparing to pace off. No way in hell he was going to hit a target less than two inches wide at fifty paces, so his usual distance was out of the question. Still, they'd likely balk at anything too close.

Deed watched as he paced off thirty yards, shaking her head. "He doesn't actually think he can hit it, does he?"

Karl shrugged. "It's possible, but...no, probably not."

Alex took a deep breath, centering himself as he stared at the target. Relaxing after his beating wasn't all that easy, but he needed all the concentration he could get if he was going to hit. Letting his eyes unfocus, he softly began speaking. "Don't focus on the target. Don't focus on anything; learn to set your sights beyond. Make it work. The target is just a part of the picture, just the center of the picture; don't let yourself miss the picture. The arrow is just part of the picture; I am just part of the picture, the bow is just part of the picture. Don't focus..." It was strange. He actually felt something...shift.

He wasn't sure what made him do it. He'd seen the _kyudo_ (2) method once before; he'd never practiced, but somehow it just felt...right.

Silence fell over them as he nocked the arrow, and rather than raise and draw, he brought it over his head completely, drawing the arrow farther than usual as he lowered his arms into position, the arrow just over eye-level.

The crack of splitting wood was deafening in the silence.

* * *

Etoh lay quietly, slowly digesting the day. Or rather, digesting the last few hours. Watching the fights had been fun, but the archery...Karl had insisted on doing some shooting of his own. And while the soldiers had cheered him, he hadn't bothered to try and split any sticks, and Etoh got the feeling that was deliberate. It was strange, but something had seemed to come over the men when Alex had drawn; they regarded him as they might have looked at a dog they weren't sure was completely tame. No, that was wrong. They looked at him with suspicion; they couldn't tell how much he was hiding, and it unnerved them.

He sighed as he rolled onto his side. They weren't particularly intelligent, these soldiers. That was no insult; they simply weren't all that smart. Observant, hard-working, diligent...they were good men, and good soldiers. However, it was unlikely that they'd go too terribly far in the ranks with this reaction. They'd just been faced with something they couldn't quite quantify, and it knocked them sprawling. Not a good quality for a commander.

That wasn't the only thing bothering him though. The prison did.

He wasn't sure why, but Deed's reaction to the news of invasion was...confusing. If she'd turned to stare at Alex with worry in her eyes, that he could have understood. But the fear hadn't been for him, it had been of him. And that was going to give him fits until someone explained what was going on.

Wood gave Alex an odd look from within his cell. "Why do you want to know so much about the invasion? You cheering on the eminent ass-kicking of a country too?"

"I just want to know what you think's going to happen."

Wood snorted. "Ask Jebra. He's the soldier boy."

"Soldiers are rather close-mouthed when ordered, and I don't see Alania making an effort to spread this information. Besides, you know more about this than anyone here will."

The honest flattery managed to break Wood from his sullenness. "They haven't really bothered to land a lot of troops yet; I'm pretty sure that the only forces we need to worry about for now are scouting parties, skirmishers, that sort of thing. It might end up taking a good week before the main force is ready to launch. But once they do..."

Alex nodded grimly. He'd had a chance to study a few maps in Jebra's room; if he was reading it right, Marmo was only about ten miles south of the Lodoss mainland. If they timed it right, they could cross, land, encamp, and be ready to march in a single night. "Where will they hit first?"

Wood shrugged. "If I were them, I'd hit Alania first. Like I said, our troops are pretty pathetic; it'll be a slaughter during the first engagement. Worst of all, Kadomos will try to bargain his way out; by the time he realizes they aren't interested in any treaty or trade agreements, the army will be dead, captured, or deserted."

Alex winced.

Wood continued. "That's assuming though that a really good, smart commander is the one in charge. But Beld..." he chuckled darkly.

"Beld wants Valis," Alex finished.

Wood nodded. "He'll probably take the most direct route, and that means cutting a path through Kannon, though he'll probably take the time and effort to conquer it on his way through."

Alex sighed. "Ignoring Alania might be a good idea, you know. The main guild of sorcerers is here, as well as the temples of Marfa and Pharis. Just because the king won't fight doesn't mean they won't; Kannon has a lot less resistance to offer. And like you said, Kadomos isn't going to try and start any fights he can squirm out of."

Wood looked up, his expression darkening. He'd visited Kannon a few times; not much use for a thief, but the farmers around had been kind enough to him. There were at least a few he'd be sorry to see hurt. He turned to Alex. "Why the axe?"

Alex shrugged, not really listening. "Why not?" By the time Parn had arrived at Fortress Myce, it wasn't just an expeditionary force that had landed; the war began in earnest. He probably had made better time, but it worried him still. It also confused him why a scouting party had landed so far north in the first place; southern Kannon was the closest point, and it was a few hundred miles away.

He grimaced. Trying to second-guess his own memories was giving him a migraine. He finally understood why prophets tried to keep things going the way they saw them, even if they weren't particularly cheerful endings. At least they were consistent.

"Hey!" Wood hissed.

Startled, Alex looked up.

"How about springing me from here, huh? No more stealing, though, okay?"

Alex sighed. "I'll give it some thought." Then he froze. In the series...

THOOOM!

...that had been the signal to start the destruction of Fortress Myce.

He turned to run, when Wood bellowed back, "HEY! Don't just leave me here!"

Alex was torn. Wood might survive to be let out later, but...growling, he yanked out his axe. "STAND BACK!" Raising it two-handed, it brought it down as hard as he could on the door lock; the seasoned oak would probably take longer to cut than the iron. Sparks flew, but the door remained. Grunting, he drew back and struck again.

And again.

It took five blows, but he managed to finally shatter the rusting lock. Grimacing, he slipped it into the loop in his belt, grabbing his light bow. "Stay here!"

"The hell I will! I'm getting out of here."

Alex paused for a moment, setting his bow against the wall. Very deliberately, he turned to the thief. And slammed him into the wall. "Listen to me very carefully, Woodchuck. You heard that BOOM, correct? Good. Now then, ask yourself. What makes BOOMs like that?" He smiled darkly at the sudden dawning realization. "That's right. Pissed-off sorcerers make booms like that. Now, consider these facts. One, we're in a fortress. Two, Slayn is nowhere near the power necessary to create explosions like that. So, the logical explanation for that noise is, some powerful wizard is helping people attack the fort. Do you really want to make yourself a target in all that mess?" He smiled. "I thought not. I'd prefer if you stayed, but if you decide to scamper, at least make sure that you wait until you can survive it, okay?" Ignoring the look of surprise on the thief's face, Alex grabbed his bow and charged up the stairs to the prison, mentally congratulating himself on going armed.

Outside was chaos; smoke and fire made any vision difficult, while screaming kobolds and goblins added to the mess.

But it was the bodies that brought him up short.

At Zaxom, he'd been lucky. None of the villagers had died. Here was an entirely different story; already, dead soldiers littered the ground. Deep-seated intellectualism coolly noted that only three or four were dead, but emotion magnified it quite enough.

Killing other creatures was hard enough; watching the dead was something that would need time to get used to.

Forcing himself to concentrate, Alex stared around. _Alright, tactics. Wood said that only scouting parties had landed; I'll trust that for now. So there probably aren't that many attackers, at least not this time around._ He frowned in thought. _What about Karla? She's not really the type for overt action; she prefers to hit from the shadows. So..._ His eyes widened. _There's a good chance there aren't very many inside here; there was only that one explosion, so there shouldn't be all that many holes in the wall. Most likely, the only enemies in the fort were the ones who'd climbed the wall; they're using the confusion to keep alive._

Fumbling at his quiver, he drew an arrow as he ran towards the gate. _If I can keep them from opening the gate, there's a chance for some organized defense._ Nocking the arrow, he made it past the corner of a smith's shed to the gate. Three kobolds had just gotten there, and were in the process of bracing their shoulders under the heavy crossbar locking the gate. Snatching a second arrow from his quiver, he nocked it on top of the second, spinning his bow to lay flat. Just get the arc right... He loosed quickly. One arrow, in an amazing stroke of luck, struck one of the kobolds through the hand; it bellowed in pain as it dropped its end. The other however, was perfectly on target, striking the door just above the crossbeam, effectively trapping it.

It wasn't much; it would be easy enough to pull the arrow out. However, it bought Alex time. More than that, the second lucky shot had focused their attention on him; they hadn't even realized the locking arrow was there.

Drawing a new arrow, he loosed at the kobold sporting his first arrow. In the lull it took him to draw a second arrow, the other two charged. He killed the second at five yards, then flung his bow aside as he raised the axe to go hand-to-hand with the last. Spinning around an over-head slice, he used the momentum to hack into the other kobold just over the jaw. Dropping his foot over the creature, he forced himself to yank the axe free

Just in time for the dark elf to arrive. Smirking, it lazily sent a throwing knife at him. He dropped and dodged; what would have landed in his throat only ended up gashing him along the temple. The dark elf just laughed. "You're quicker than the she-elf was. She screamed _soooo_ prettily when I cut her throat."

Further gloating was cut off as a pair of knives flew over Alex's head; one perfectly centered in the right jugular, the other (a stiletto, he noticed idly) piercing his eye and brain.

Wood shook his head as he strolled over to retrieve the blades. "You trying to trick me? This is hardly as bad as you made it out to be."

Alex looked at the thief, relief slowly creeping into his smile. "Yeah, well, if the gate had opened, it would have been pretty bad."

Wood shrugged. "Not too worried about these little nasties; I was wondering what happened to that 'pissed-off-sorcerer' of yours."

Alex frowned. Come to think of it, where WAS Karla? Penchant for the shadows or no, he didn't think she'd just sit back and let things go in this direction.

"Don't move!"

They simultaneously turned to glare in disgust at the soldier currently leveling a sword at them. "Shut the hell up." Then stared at each other at the stereo curse.

Jebra came jogging up, blood matting his coat on the side. "What's happening here? What are kobolds doing inside the fortress?"

Alex stared. "You're hurt."

Jebra waved away his concerns. "One of those little monsters got lucky; it's nothing serious." He looked around at the mess of dead bodies, and more importantly at Woodchuck. "Now what happened here?"

Noticing the hard glares leveled at the thief, Alex spoke up. "I heard the explosion, and came up here. Four of your men were already dead, and three kobolds were trying to open the gates. I shot two of them and managed to block the gate, and then the dark elf showed up. Wood killed it, and then your subordinate," he jerked a thumb at the soldier (who still hadn't lowered his sword), "decided that we were responsible for this whole mess."

Jebra motioned at the soldier to lower his sword, but his suspiscions remained. "And how precisely did that thief manage to get out in the first place?"

Alex met his glare. "I let him out."

"How? I have the key."

"I broke the lock." Tearing a corner off his shirt, he pressed the makeshift bandage against the wound on his forehead. "A good thing I did, too. That elf probably would have killed me."

It took a few seconds, but Jebra's glare softened. Wood could have run by now, but hadn't. That was worth something.

"Alex!"

He turned towards the rapidly approaching elf. "You okay?"

She almost tripped as she came to a halt, pulling herself up indignantly. "I'M the one who's supposed to say that, you idiot! Where were you! Slayn and I wake up from the feel of magic in the air, and you're nowhere to be found! You..." she trailed off at the mutters of the gathered soldiers. "What?"

Alex suppressed a grin. "You and Slayn woke up together?"

It took a bit, but as the implication hit home, a rather becoming blush erupted over her features. "We...you...it didn't..."

Praying that something martial would grab their attention, Alex decided to try and spare her embarrassment. Not that he wouldn't use this little snipe when he got the chance. "So what now? There probably aren't any more kobolds within the fortress, but I doubt that they just wandered in here."

Jebra frowned as Etoh and Slayn arrived (Karl and Ghim had already shown up with Deed). "There probably aren't more soldiers to worry about, but the magic concerns me. Deedlit, was it? You said you felt magic when you woke up. How much?"

Slayn answered for her as he knelt to help Etoh. "A single, massive locus of power came out of nowhere. It's only one sorcerer, but..."

"...well?"

Slayn sighed. "Whoever they are, their power is nothing short of amazing. Perhaps Wort himself could match this level of magic, but I doubt anyone else could."

One of the soldiers snorted. "What would the great sage be doing blowing us up."

Wood's hand impacted his forehead audibly. "You moron, he's saying that someone _else_ is as strong as Wort, and THEY are the ones blowing up parts of the fortress."

Jebra's raised hand managed to keep them from skewering him on principal, but it was a near thing. "Can the two of you beat this sorcerer?"

Slayn laughed, though it was NOT in amusement. "I wouldn't even bother to try. I'm painfully outmatched, and so is Deed. You would only be sending us to our deaths."

Etoh looked up from Jebra's wound. "We managed to save one of your men, but it's a near thing. He needs medical attention better than I can manage right now."

Jebra sighed. "I'm afraid that all we can offer him is rest. We have a responsibility to protect this fortress."

Alex stared at him dully, then retrieved his bow. "Could you show me one of the look-out posts? Preferably something that overlooks the main entrance?"

Jebra frowned, but agreed to join him. Once atop the main tower, the two looked out over the cleared field that stretched perhaps fifty feet before meeting the woods. "Was there something you wanted to show me?"

In answer, Alex drew and sighted into the forest. Without finding any apparent targets, he loosed. As the arrow whistled into the forest, a sudden bellow of agony was clearly heard, as well as a roar of quite a few more angry creatures. A LOT of suddenly angry creatures.

Leaning on his bow, Alex turned to the suddenly hard-faced commander. "You probably know better than me. About how many kobolds, or goblins, or whatevers, would it take to sound like that?"

Jebra let loose a rattling breath. "Goblins and Kobolds, yes. Unfortunately, I recognize some of those bellows; those were ogres. Not many, but..." he sighed. "Enough." Straightening, he turned to speak to his men.

And was halted as Alex grabbed his shoulder. "How many?"

Jebra didn't face him. "Normally, I'd say those were just goblins getting ornery. But with a sorcerer backing them up, they're probably a skirmishing party ahead of a main army. So all told, I'd estimate 200."

"And how many soldiers do you have?"

"...we've lost three so far. So 41."

Alex grimaced. "So the odds are about five to one. Beautiful. Now what?"

Jebra sighed. "My duty is to protect and hold this fortress. To the death."

This time, Alex didn't bother just trying to stop him as he bodily yanked him around. "So you're going to die? You're going to send every one of your men to their deaths, for a country that despises them, for a duty they hardly want?"

Jebra's shove was unexpected. "What could you know of it? You're not Alanian, you said so yourself. We will die to the last man if we must, but we will not die lightly. If they want this fortress, we will make them pay dearly for it. THAT is our duty."

Alex's full-armed punch caught Jebra flat-footed. Cracking his knuckles, Alex glared at him. "Let me explain this to you. Something that Wood told me. He goes on and on about how unreliable the Alanian military is. Sure, he has a great reason not to like any of you, but you know something? That's the general feeling your entire country has. We came from a village that refused to fight goblins it could easily have driven away completely, but it didn't. Simply because it would be violence, and violence is not a positive attribute for an Alanian."

"So what?" Jebra growled as he tried to get to his feet. Alex planted his foot on the captain's chest.

"Look, if you want to die, fine. You have the right to chose how you die. But why now? Why like this? You're not fighting a war; this won't be counted an honorable death. Marmo is attacking, and they could care less about Alan. They'll strike at Kannon to cut a path to their real target; Valis. And you won't be the honored dead, you'll be collateral damage."

Jebra sat up. "There is a treaty between all the nations of Lodoss. If Marmo attacks, the nations will band together; Alan will send aid." He sighed; he didn't like it, but it could have been worse. "We will be recorded as the first casualties of this war."

He expected many reactions. Derision of his duty. Arguments.

Alex throwing his head back and howling with laughter was not one of them.

Alex chuckled, though the only real amusement he felt was at the expression on Jebra's face. "You still don't get it, do you. Kadomos doesn't care about the treaty; he doesn't like soldiers, he doesn't like the military, he doesn't like war period. Stop me if you disagree. …No? I thought not. What makes you think he'll fight a war that doesn't directly threaten him? You'll be an acceptable loss for the peace of the kingdom. If you're going to be abandoned, you may as well find a way to benefit from the freedom."

Jebra stared at him. In the face of his outright laughter, his arguments had evaporated. How do you argue with a madman? "So what would _you_ do?"

Alex shrugged, his mirth subsiding. "I'd fight to win. You're outnumbered, so what? At Cannae, Hannibal defeated an army twice the size of his; hell, at Gaugamela Alexander the Great won even though he was outnumbered almost ten to one."

"Alexander the _Great_?" Jebra asked flatly.

"My namesake, and the namesake of all men named Alex."

Jebra shook his head. "So, Great One, what do you recommend?"

Alex grinned. "There's a back gate out of here, correct?" His smile widened as Jebra nodded. A grim smile, but a smile nonetheless. "How many horses do you have?"

* * *

"ALL MEN, ARM YOURSELVES FOR BATTLE!" Jebra bellowed. "TWELVE OF YOU WILL REMAIN WITHIN THE FORTRESS, UNDER THE COMMAND OF ALEX LATRANS (3). THE REST OF YOU, SADDLE HORSE AND FOLLOW ME!"

Deed stared. Most of the soldiers stared. Wood stared.

Ghim snorted. "Kid, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?"

Alex didn't answer for a minute as retrieved his arrows; a grisly job, but necessary. "Well, in about two minutes we're going to open the gates of the fortress. At which point, about two hundred goblins, kobolds, and ogres are going to charge us head on and do their best to kill us. And those of us remaining in the fortress get to try and keep them from succeeding."

Staring.

Alex looked around. "What?"

One of the soldiers loomed over to him; a bit difficult when he was four inches shorter. "What made the captain put YOU in charge?"

"It's my plan," Alex said. "And Jebra thought it was better than waiting around for that sorcerer to get bored and incinerate all of us." He drew an arrow and began sketching out the plan on courtyard. "Alright, two of you are going to have to pull the crossbar, but we may not have to open the gates. Once the bar's down, you'll join the rest. You're to form two ranks, one on either side of the gate, three men wide and two men deep. Don't bother drawing swords; I want you to use spears. Keep them at rest; we don't want anyone to know you're there when they begin the charge. Ghim and I get to hold the center."

"The hell with that!"

Ignoring the dwarf, he plowed on. "Deed, I want you in the back..."

"I can fight!" she snapped indignantly. She'd heard their conversation rather clearly, and like just about everyone in the fortress, she was a bit unnerved by his laughing up there.

He turned to glare at her. "I'm not telling you to stay out of the fight. I want you, Slayn, and Etoh in the back throwing spells over our heads." He paused. "Unless...Deed, do you think you can handle my bow?"

THAT brought her up short. "Of course I can! I've been teaching you to shoot!"

"I mean can you handle that kind of pull weight."

She had the grace to look sheepish. "Oh. Yes, I can handle that."

He nodded. "Alright then, Slayn and Etoh will be in the back. I don't expect much, but just as the charge hits the gates I want you to throw the noisiest, flashiest spell you can into their faces. With any luck, the front rank will try to backpedal and end up getting trampled under the rest. If nothing else, it should slow down the charge's momentum. Karl, I want you and Deed about twenty feet back; shoot into the opposite corner, force them to stay into the center. Force them to Ghim and me. Once they clear the gates, I want the soldiers to lower their spears and start attacking the flanks. Don't bother trying to close, just keep them close. Understood?"

More staring.

Standing, he surveyed his 'troops.' "One other thing. We are not expected to defeat them all; you are not expected to win where the odds are roughly 18 to 1. We just have to hold them." He frowned as they stood motionless. "What the hell are you waiting for, an invitation? MOVE IT!"

His sudden bellow managed to startle them into motion, though a lifetime of being conditioned for obeying orders certainly helped. Turning, he prepared to hand off his bow when he noticed the nominal 'gang' still staring at him. "What?"

Slayn shook his head. "What did you do before you showed up in Zaxom? Were you a soldier?"

"I was a college student who read accounts of famous battles every once in a while," Alex replied. "Are you good to go?"

Slayn shook his head tiredly. "I don't know much about assault magic, I'm afraid. I can definitely manage something flashy, but I'm worried about what happens when that sorcerer decides to join the attack."

Alex shrugged. "If we're lucky, they'll be in full retreat by the time it seems necessary. Besides, what kind of a mage would bother to help someone who outnumbers us this badly?"

On that cheery note, they took positions. Ghim glared at him. "You know, I have my own concerns. There's no real reason for me to even mix up in this."

Alex smiled. He'd been doing a good job of hiding it, but the only reason he hadn't soiled himself was that he'd already sweated out any moisture. He was terrified. Granted his idea meshed with what would be tactically called for. Sort of. It didn't mean it would work. It didn't mean that a lot of people might die here because of his idea. For one brief...okay, for one not-so-brief moment, he wished he'd just kept his mouth shut.

Unfortunately, he DID have some standards. And the whole thing about letting fate run its course was just irritating; he didn't want to let all these people die just because it happened in the series.

So he forced himself to calm down. And rather than trading insults with Ghim, he simply smiled faintly. "Thanks for sticking around." He almost laughed at the quizzical look on Ghim's face.

Then Woodchuck shoved his way in between them. "Don't know how I let myself get dragged into this mess. Still, I suppose I owe you something for getting me out of there."

Alex stared, his grin warming. "Thanks."

Woodchuck shrugged. "Eh, if you gotta die, may as well die fighting." He swallowed. "Listen, this is going to drive me crazy if I don't find out, so humor me. What were you laughing about up there?"

Alex started. "Oh, you heard that?"

Ghim snorted. "The entire garrison heard that. Heck, the enemy probably heard that. Maybe we got lucky and it rattled them."

Alex chuckled weakly. "I needed to do something that would shock Jebra into listening, and I didn't think slapping him again would be the best idea."

Wood turned, his stare incredulous. "Whoa, wait a minute, AGAIN? You slapped Jebra?"

"Punched him." Ignoring the looks, he turned to the ranks of spearmen. "You two, get the bar out of the way. I don't know how much longer we can wait before the sorcerer gets impatient." As though to underscore his words, a whistling roar grew louder as the watchtowers exploded on either side of the gate. They were far enough away that none of the rubble hit anyone, but it certainly rattled them. "Stay in ranks! You two, get forward and get ready to drop it and run."

Suddenly nervous, the two handed their spears to the men behind them, and carefully picked their ways forward. Setting their shoulders under the bar, they heaved it up, stepping just far enough back to drop it before turning to sprint back into formation.

Alex took a deep breath as he started forward, axe in one hand, a sword (borrowed from the armory) in the other. As no one had tried to rush them yet, he decided to start opening the doors himself. One hand on each, he started pushing, the doors slowly giving way.

They'd only opened about six inches when he felt them lighten. Here it comes... He jogged backwards to hold the line with Ghim and Woodchuck as the doors finally banged open.

The simple thought, 'two hundred people' hadn't prepared him for the reality of fifteen tons of armored flesh rushing him. Forcing himself not to panic, he raised his axe. "Get ready Slayn...NOW!"

A sudden burst of light erupted just over and behind his head as a sudden gust of wind blasted into the ranks from above. It wasn't enough to stop the charge, but it slowed and confused them just enough. "SPEARMEN!"

Double-ranks of six spears lowered as the Alanian soldiers on either side started pistoning the razor-edged halberds into the mixed ranks of goblin and kobold, forcing them into narrower ranks, bottle-necking them and herding them right into the waiting axes, swords, and daggers. Arrows from Karl and Deedlit whispered over their heads into the waiting ranks, keeping them wary, slowing the charge enough that sheer weight of numbers didn't break them.

It wasn't enough.

Alex had hoped he'd learned enough. They were coming at the three of them five at a time, and while he was now good enough to handle a kobold or goblin one-on-one easy, he'd neglected to learn to fight with allies in close quarters. He was over-thinking his moves, constantly wary of what a missed swing could do to his current allies. Granted, he liked them, but the far colder truth was that he couldn't afford to lose either one; they had too few to hold for long with any casualties. He was still managing to hold them off, hold the line, but he wasn't fighting as well as he could have.

So he hacked and stabbed and dodged. One goblin rushed him hard enough to stagger him, only to die as a stiletto from Wood neatly pierced the spinal cord in the neck. He returned the favor later, Ghim covering his back and in turns.

Still, it was a hard battle. The Alanians at least weren't suffering any losses. Between the small hedge of steel and the fact that there was clearly an easier target straight ahead, they were simply accepting their losses and moving forward.

Still, as they fell a rather grim part of Alex's plan became clear. Killing them in a narrow zone wasn't simply for the advantage of halting their maneuverability. As each body fell along the line they held, it piled against further dead comrades, slowly building a kind of bunker of corpses. One they had to scramble over in order to attack.

If not for the exhaustion that was creeping up on them, it would have been easy; the goblins and kobolds slowing as they crested the bodies being slowly crushed underfoot, leaving them vulnerable to gut blows from spear and sword.

Still, it wasn't enough. They'd killed dozens, and the press was getting to be too much. Particularly because Ogres had joined the fight, and they simply bulled their way through. The first died from one of Deed's last arrows, but the second used its body as a shield to charge the three. Not really thinking at that point, Alex dropped and flung himself at its ankles, halting it but putting him in the unenviable position of being right in the thick. He no longer had the line to help him, and he was currently flanked by a four-hundred pound, eight-foot tall monster.

Ghim flung his axe as hard as he could, chopping eight inches deep into the ogre's liver. Weaponless, he was startled as Alex's axe fell across his foot. Wait...if he doesn't have it...then... He froze for a moment, just long enough for a new ogre to appear. Than near-berserker rage kicked in as he grabbed the weapon, rolling under a vicious slash from a war scythe. Still kneeling, he chopped hard into the tendon along the back of the knee, ignoring the crippled ogre as it fell bellowing under spear thrusts. Grunting, he heaved at the fallen ogre's bulk, struggling to find some sign of Alex. He felt a sudden wave of hope as something pushed with him.

Alex managed to drag himself out from under the dead ogre. He was scraped badly, his sides ached from the force of the ogre's legs, and he felt like two-thirds of his body was covered in bruises.

But he was alive.

And having just faced death for the second time in the past week, something snapped.

He didn't want to do this.

He didn't want to fight people, kill people. He could do it, but he didn't like it.

Most of all though? He didn't want to almost die again.

Flinging his sword into the mass of Marmo soldiers, he stooped and grabbed an eight-foot war scythe. Roaring incoherently, he brought it down into the skull of a kobold. Ripping it free, he shoved Ghim back, and taking a firm grip in the middle, he proceeded to do his best to carve a bloody whirlwind out of the charging creatures.

The rage subsided a bit as exhaustion started to make itself known, but he was still too high on adrenaline to stop now. Having managed to beat a lull out of his opponents, he staggered backwards. "CLOSE RANKS! PREPARE TO ADVANCE!"

Ghim and Woodchuck helped drag him back behind the closing double-rank of spearmen as they leveled their weapons threateningly.

Alex wiped blood from his face as he glared into the mass. "On my signal, charge."

The sudden calm was eerie. Again, and not for the last time, they wondered if they were following a madman.

Then a roar erupted from outside the walls. A roar of mixed human voices and whinnying horse.

"CHARGE!"

The outside had been enough to draw their attention. The distraction was enough that the first rank's charge killed six in one moment. The front's attention snapped to them.

This proved a fatal mistake as from the left and right flanks, Jebra's cavalry broke over them like tidal wave.

The Marmo still waiting to get through the gate had, quite naturally, formed into a kind of half-circle pressed into the wall. Now, with the front blocked by a force they were currently a bit afraid of and the flanks being crushed and cut under mixed horse hooves and swords, they took the only option left to them.

They fled to the rear.

The twelve who had stayed behind in the fort didn't really bother to attack; exhausted and wounded, they were content to simply hold the line, force the Marmo back. The cavalry however...fresh and angry, they cut mercilessly into the ranks.

Alex managed to step forward as the last of the goblins cleared the gateway. He frowned as they ran into the night. "Jebra, call back your horsemen. They're beaten; let them go."

One of the nearer horsemen rounded on him. "Why not? They're just goblins!" Then he noticed the glares being leveled at him; glares from the foot soldiers who'd fought beside Alex.

Alex simply surveyed the field, numb from battle shock. "There are still over a hundred of them. We haven't lost anyone yet; I'd prefer to keep it that way."

Then what he'd said registered. No one had died. None of his soldiers had died. There wasn't a single person who hadn't sustained wounds, but they were all alive.

Alex's eyes narrowed. "Hold on. It's not over yet."

Confused murmurs met his pronouncement as he started up the hill, the scythe serving nicely as a cane. They followed his gaze, and felt themselves chill at the sight.

Ashram sat atop his horse at the edge of the forest, a black-cloaked figure at his side.

Alex's eyes narrowed. He couldn't make out the second, cloaked one's features, but there was just enough light from the still-burning fires and moon that he could make out three twinkles around their forehead. Karla...

Behind him, the Alanians began whispering among themselves. There wasn't a single one who hadn't heard of the Black Knight's reputation; they were about to go head-to-head with the most skilled swordsman on Lodoss, possibly on all Forceria.

Their breathes caught as he raised his naked sword.

And just as quickly, urged his horse into a gallop.

South. Away from the fort.

Alex winced slightly. He hadn't realized just how hard he'd been gripping the scythe; his hand was starting to hurt. Come to think of it, just about everything was starting hurt.

"We...we scared him off..."

He snorted in disdain. "No. Ashram let us win." A chill silence fell over them at the use of the name. Alex turned, smiling darkly. "But we still won."

Jebra frowned in thought. The boy...no, the young man's eyes still shone with spirit, for all that his body could barely keep him on his feet. He'd been ready to fight Ashram himself.

He was much more dangerous than he'd thought. And far more foolish.

Worry over his stability vanished in a different worry as Alex sank to his knees, and finally allowed blissful unconsciousness to claim him.

* * *

Etoh sighed. "It seems like every place we go, I end up having to heal him back from the brink of death."

Jebra shook his head. There had been two of his men who'd been almost as bad off, one who WAS worse off. Etoh had been waffling in between who to treat first when Slayn had simply said, 'remember the aftermath of Zaxom?' At which point the young priest had rushed to the most seriously injured. And while the three worst off had grudgingly agreed to the treatment, the entire garrison had insisted that Alex be treated next.

Jebra sighed. "How long do you think before he regains consciousness?"

Etoh sighed. "I don't know; it could take hours, or it could take weeks."

"...I'm close enough."

They both jumped at the quiet mutter from Alex. Etoh recovered first as Alex struggled to sit up. "You're hurt! Stay down." It was a measure of Alex's weakness that he allowed himself to be pushed back.

Jebra coughed somewhat. "I don't know how much you remember, so I'll just be blunt. The fortress is in shambles; you didn't notice them, I don't think, but a few more of those mage attacks hit during the battle. The fortress walls have been breached, and it's clear that we can't defend this location. I wanted to hear your advice on the matter."

"Why ask me? YOU'RE the captain."

"Why not?"

Alex laughed. It sounded like something he would have said. "I already told you what I think. Go to Roid in Valis. That's where the fight's going to come to a head."

"And what would I tell my superiors about justifying that decision?"

Alex grinned. "Why wouldn't you go to Valis? After all, that nation is clearly the capitol for a warrior, and there's no chance that Alan won't honor such an important treaty. And considering how close you are to the border, isn't it only natural that you'd be the first sent?"

Jebra laughed. Not slippery enough for a politician's excuse, but they'd expect something with holes in it from a soldier. "I'll do that. We'll have to leave before we can get orders, though."

"Would you mind leaving me a horse? Actually, could you leave me two?"

Jebra stared at him. "You're not coming with us?"

Alex shook his head. "I was thinking of asking Wood to come along."

"We don't care that he's a thief anymore, not after he fought for us."

Near death experiences as a bonding activity. Alex shook his head. "I...I've been thinking about this for a while, and there's something that I need to do." Shaking himself out of his reverie, he continued. "I think you should head northwest from here, towards the Temple of Pharis. Etoh can show you the way, and your men need better healing than what he can give them. No offense."

Etoh shrugged. He was surprised, but he didn't really see any way to dissuade him. "None taken. I'm just one man, after all."

Alex sighed as he sank into bed. "Once your men are in better shape, head south west around the forests for Roid." He paused. "Um, don't ask me why, but you might want to pull around the Forest of No Return. Follow the road from there into Valis. Oh, and Captain? Could you ask Wood to come in?"

Jebra stared at him, then heaved a sigh. He would have been good for morale that was for sure. "I don't suppose there's anyway to convince you to come with us, is there?" Not getting an answer, he turned to leave.

Alex watched him go. "Etoh, I need to speak to Wood privately. But before you go, I need to know; how much longer do you think it'll take me to heal?"

"Most of your injuries were fairly minor, it was just that you had a lot of them. You bruised your ribs when that ogre fell on top of you, but as long as you don't do anything too strenuous, that should be fine in a few days." He smiled shyly. "I managed to perform a delayed healing on you; every night, you'll enter a healing trance instead of just sleeping, at least for the next few days."

"Thanks."

Etoh smiled and left. "I'll send Wood in if I see him." He started as he noticed the thief leaning against the wall. "Oh! Um, Alex needed to talk to you."

Wood shrugged. "In a minute."

"He seemed pretty urgent..."

Wood raised a hand. "I am not setting foot in there while that elf's inside."

"What elf..." his voice trailed off as arguing seemed to start up. It seemed she _was_ inside. "Do you not like her?"

Wood shrugged. "Nothing like that. I just have the sense to recognize a lover's tiff, and I ain't getting anywhere near that."

Etoh spluttered at the blunt statement. "Lover's tiff! They've only known each other for a week!"

Wood just smirked. "Hey, sometimes that's all it takes."

* * *

"...I'm going with you."

If he wasn't currently bedridden and exhausted, Alex likely would have jumped. "Deed!"

The elf glared at him, daring him to contradict her. "I don't know what you're up to, but I'm coming with you and that stupid thief, okay?"

"The hell you are."

He never even saw her move. One second she was leaning against the doorway, the next she was right in his face. "Why not! Why can't I come and watch you try to get yourself killed again, huh!"

"Deed..."

"And I want some answers! How are you telling the future! Did you lie to me in the forest when we met?"

"What are you talking about?"

"THIS!" she gestured around. "You knew that Marmo was going to launch an invasion before they did. You knew this fort was going to be attacked, and somehow you were in the perfect place to stop it. Explain that!"

Alex stared at her. He wasn't sure if there were rules for this kind of thing, but he was pretty sure that it was frowned upon. Namely, telling a person you knew this was just a story was frowned upon. Still... "I read about this once."

Deed started, panting slightly from her outburst. "What do you mean?"

Alex slowly forced himself into a sitting position. "I read a story once. Well, I saw a retelling of a story once."

"What are you talking about? What does that – "

"A story called the Record of the Lodoss War."

She stopped, her eyes wide."

Relentlessly, he plowed ahead. "On the world that I told you about, on Earth, this is just a story. A movie; a picture book where the paintings move. It begins with the attack on Zaxom and ends..." he took a deep breath. "Never mind how it ends."

"Tell me."

Alex glared at her, his eyes hard. "No."

"I want to know..."

"I SAID NO!" He winced slightly at the hurt look on her face. Sighing, he continued. "Deed, it's bad enough for me. Knowing what's going to happen...it's why I keep getting hurt like this." He stared at her, eyes haunted. "If random people die, I don't have to think about it. Because really, who cares? There's a saying in my world; 'a single death is a tragedy, a thousand deaths is just a statistic.' I don't know if this was what they meant, but to me that says that when death occurs, it has no bite unless it was personal. And every person that I know is going to die, is supposed to die, I think I can do something about it. And if I fail, it's going to eat at me. If some man gets killed on a battlefield today, I can live with that, because I'm not there, and because I couldn't do anything about it. But..."

Deed sank to her knees, seeming to find something fascinating about his hands. "You're rambling."

He sighed. "I know. Listen, I'm telling you the truth. But...it's different now. Deed, all I saw, all I know is that in one version of this story, in one possible future, there is a somewhat happy ending. There's a series of events that will be beneficial, and if I follow them I might be able to do something."

She looked up at him. There was neither judgment nor understanding in her gaze; she was just listening. "Why you? Won't the...the 'story' work itself out?" She frowned in worry at his suddenly distant look. "What is it?"

He took a deep breath. "Deed, I'm changing things. There...there are tragedies in this story too, and I don't want that, alright? And the changes are getting bigger, not smaller, it's all snowballing. But...the thing is, I didn't start the changes; things were already different when I arrived."

"How do you know that?"

"I wasn't supposed to save Zaxom." She gasped. "Someone else was supposed to, someone who was already from this world. But he wasn't there, and I did. You weren't supposed to join us, not yet, you were only supposed to meet us yesterday, when that dark elf showed up. And..." he gestured around. "This is a HUGE change that I caused, Deedlit. Fortress Myce wasn't supposed to be attacked and damaged, three or four soldiers weren't supposed to die. EVERYONE was supposed to die. The fortress was supposed to be demolished, and burned to the ground, as some kind of macabre coming-of-age for the hero, forcing him to deal with loss and acceptance of duty or something."

Deed stared at him. He was telling her the truth. He knew destiny itself, and he was changing it. "Are...what are you? Really?"

"...I don't know anymore. I started out human, I was born twenty years ago, but..." he shook his head. "None of this is making sense for me either."

She stood. She felt unsteady, but she was an elf; she would not reveal that indignity. "What are you planning?"

He shook his head. "I want to make another change Deed, a big change. Please don't ask me more than that. And I'm going to need a thief's help to do it."

She nodded carefully. "What do you want me to do?"

Alex winced. He didn't like her formality; she seemed in awe of him. He'd hoped to have gotten rid of that when he left Zaxom. Damnit, he was turning into goddamned hero!

"I want you, Slayn, Etoh, Ghim, and Karl to go with Jebra to the Temple of Pharis. Once they're safely arrived, take everyone but the soldiers to Alan. Bring news that Jebra's going to honor the treaty; I want them to understand that they won't have a back door out, or at least one particular back door. Assuming they let you in."

"Then what?"

"Take everyone to Valis. Deed...you'll have to take them through the Forest of No Return." He nodded sympathetically at her sudden gasp. "I'm sorry to ask you, but..." he resisted the urge to say, 'this is the way it has to be done,' "please. There...I'm going to try and find you there, but if not, I'll definitely meet you in Roid. Alright?"

Deed rose, curtsying. What hurt worst was that she was serious. "I'll see you there."

Wood shook his head as she came in, watching Deed leave. "Break her heart yet?"

Alex resisted the urge to throw something at the thief. He needed his help. Well, that and he was too weak to make it hurt. "I'm going to Kannon soon. I want you to come along."

Wood blink-blinked in surprise. "Kannon? What the hell do you want there?"

Alex managed to grin. "I want to steal something there. Something that's never been tried before. So...you in? Or are you out?"

* * *

Karla chuckled quietly as she watched the two parties set off in her crystal ball. She'd been honestly surprised by their rather effective defense of the fortress; at first she'd wondered if she had misjudged the Alanian strength.

Then she spotted the tall one. For one who could see, it was clear that there were threads connecting him to the troops, to all of them. What surprised her was the thread that had flung itself around Ashram.

Still, she would have to continue observing carefully. Both Valis and Marmo were strong, but the Dark Emperor was clearly the stronger. If he did so carefully, he could have taken all Lodoss.

She would not allow that.

Still, he was not invincible, nor was Marmo. She would need both sides to exhaust a great deal of strength, which meant bringing as many to the fray as possible. Kannon would be nothing more than a hurdle; she had little doubt that Beld would crush the nation. However, if Valis and the forces of…she chuckled, 'good' were to have any chance, they'd need allies. She wondered idly if Kadomos would take her bait and join.

Still, the boy was clearly promising. She wondered what would happen if she forged a nation of her own making, or rather had him forge a nation of his own through conquest. He'd fail in the end of course; right at the very end in fact. She'd see to it.

She laughed. The pieces were moving, and while perhaps not perfectly within her control, they moved along the paths she set.

She was a master of this game, and she was playing to win.

* * *

Wood stretched in the sun as they cantered south. "Three days ago I was rotting in a prison cell. Now, may own jailers released me, gave me good food, new clothes, and a horse." He grinned at Alex. "Kid, hanging around you just may turn into a gold mine."

Alex grinned. Their departure had been a LOT happier than he'd thought. Getting a cheer from the garrison had been...odd, but he'd kind of liked it. He'd been surprised when Karl had announced that he'd be going due north for a mission of his own, but everyone else had slapped him on the back and wished him the best of luck. So clearly, Alex was the only one out of the loop.

He sighed in bliss. Deedlit had dropped her formality, and while still a bit distant, she was at least not treating him like he was halfway between a leper and a saint.

He was healing fast, he was on the road to adventure, and assuming he managed to keep from getting killed (which he was getting better at; last time it was a hobgoblin to push him this far. This time it had taken an ogre) he might be able to create a Record of the Lodoss War that didn't have all the bits he hadn't liked.

Maybe this hero stuff wasn't so bad.

To be continued...

(1) - Pavel Tsatsouline (I THINK I spelled that right) is a real person; he trained the KGB using what he calls 'the ramp method.' It actually works.

(2) - Traditional Japanese archery; the exact method is quite a bit more involved, but I don't know everything about it beyond that they draw the bow above their head rather than at chest level.

(3) – Latrans is Latin for 'barking.' The scientific name of the coyote is _Canis latrans_; and like I said in a previous chapter, I happen to like coyotes.


	4. Chapter 3: Little Stones Causing big

Disclaimer: Noun. (dis-kle-mrr). An act or written disclamation; a disavowal. In short, a flimsy pretext to avoid being legally harassed, used by authors too lazy to create completely original stories and/or characters.

_**Chronicles of Murphy: Book One**_

_**Book of the Accursed**_

Goblin Speech

**Chapter Three  
**Little Stones Causing Big Ripples

Deed sighed quietly as they continued north. She'd informed them of Alex's request; they'd been surprised (among other things) that he was just up and leaving, but had reluctantly agreed to do as he'd asked. Jebra likewise was already planning the route they'd need to take to reach Roid; he had decided to leave those too wounded to travel at the temple with instructions to find them afterwards. She wondered what the reaction in Alan would be when it became clear that soldiers were abandoning their posts for the war in Valis.

What really puzzled her though was the unforeseen reaction. They'd passed through villages on their way to the temple of Pharis, and well...there were certain things that one simply had to expect of soldiers. Given the slightest opportunity, they would find a decent tavern and get either roaring drunk or just gossip; being forced into the back-of-beyond as they usually were, they embraced an opportunity to get back into the flow of the rest of the world. And of course, tales of their heroism and exploits started sprouting as soon as the more attractive tavern wenches started to hang around.

The tale kept coming up however, of how this strange, tall, bushy-haired man had shown up out of nowhere and led them to victory against a vastly superior Marmo force. Alanian soldiers didn't get to brag about their martial prowess all that often, and any victory was inevitably blown out of proportion. At the last town they'd passed, it had gotten to the point where the twelve in the fortress had single-handedly fought off a thousand goblins while the cavalry routed two hundred trained knights.

No matter how the story changed though, there was one point they kept the same; Alex had been the one to put it all together. (Several hundred miles to the south, Alex was wondering if maybe his allergies hadn't gone away like he'd thought, as he kept sneezing at odd intervals).

Deed shook her head in amusement as she watched thirty or so young men, armed mostly with quarterstaffs or longbows trail after the war party. Most of them were hunters; after years of being mocked about the cowardice of their weapons and skills, hearing about a heroic archer was all the excuse they needed to join up. They fully intended to march all the way to Valis to enlist, either with Jebra's squad or the Valisian Regulars; whichever was more convenient.

Her amusement didn't last long though. She hadn't told anyone else about Alex's confession regarding his knowledge; she was at times torn between being furious at him for not telling her everything and grateful for it. In hind-sight, it could well have been better if she'd never found out; she kept second-guessing everything, wondering if this was the way the story was supposed to go. Regardless of Alex's admission that the story was getting changed, she didn't think one person could possibly alter destiny.

Mostly though, she worried about Alex in the south, where he had admitted the war would begin. He'd told her flat out he was going to try and make a big change in the storyline, and she was worried that fate was going to swat him for being presumptuous, for daring to assume that _he_ was enough to change her plans.

Mostly to take her mind off her worries, she nudged her horse closer to Etoh. The soldiers, somehow finding out that they were supposed to 'follow orders' from Alex had insisted that they all be given horses; they'd even traded one of the weaker horses for a particularly strong pony for Ghim to ride (they'd had to physically restrain him from beating the life out of the soldier who'd brought it for him. Ghim, it would seem, hated riding).

She blinked as he hastily started stuffing something into his saddlebacks. "What was that?"

The novice priest grinned a little too largely. "Oh, just passing the time, you know."

She pouted at him softly; she knew just how dangerous a weapon it was, and would use it shamelessly if she had to. "Please?"

Sighing, Etoh looked around furtively. "Listen, you have to promise not to tell anyone that you saw me making this, alright?"

"Alright."

Looking about one more time, he pulled out a bundle of cloth and began to unwrap it. Curiosity turned to incredulity that threatened to change to laughter. "Etoh, I had no idea you could embroider."

Blushing a bit, Etoh continued unfolding the banner enough for her to see the image in the center more clearly. "Well...there were priestesses in the temple to help with this kind of thing, but everyone, particularly novices, was expected to help out some way and well..." he shrugged helplessly. "It turned out I was good at needlework. The priestesses all used to tease me about it, but I didn't mind it from them. But if these soldiers find out..."

Deed nodded as she got a good look at the image, one she'd only seen a few times, but one she instantly recognized. "That's the weird dog Alex has on his pendant. And..." she frowned. "Come to think of it, I never asked him what that other thing is, the one you embroidered behind it."

"He says it's called an umbrella. Apparently it's an invention for keeping rain off your head."

She frowned at the image of the crook-headed, cloth-wrapped pole. "Doesn't look very effective."

"I asked him about that, and he just shrugged and said, 'it works.' You know how he is." Etoh started to stuff the banner back into his saddlebag. "Oh, and he said that weird dog is called a coyote."

Deed shook her head. "What kind of dog would have nine tails, out of curiosity?"

Etoh shrugged. "I asked him, and he said there were legends where he came from about this weird kind of spirit called a _kitsune_ that took the form of a fox with nine tails. But he said that the one on his pendant was supposed to be some version of what he called a coyote. That's why it's just gray and tan; he specifically said they wouldn't be very colorful."

Deed frowned. "What's a coyote?"

Etoh was quiet for a moment. "He said that it's a kind of wild dog from his homeland. Apparently, it's kind of a small, lightly built wolf. They live in packs he said, but hunt alone. Supposedly, they're extremely intelligent and cunning, though not too terribly strong. And even though they can be dangerous, most people think of them as cowards."

Deed stared at him. "Why would anyone want to have that kind of an image on them?"

"I wasn't finished." Etoh took a deep breath. "Alex said that where he came from, people didn't really like coyotes. Well, most people anyway. And that over the past forty years, they've been trying to wipe them out. In that period of time, it was believed that they killed six million coyotes. (1)" He nodded at Deed's quiet gasp. "The thing is...they failed. Even though they've killed that many, the coyote is flourishing more than it ever did." He was quiet. "He said that the old people who first inhabited the land used to worship the coyote as a trickster, because no matter how often death fought with him he lost. He said they had a saying about the coyotes, about how they were the perfect survivor." He took a deep breath. " 'When men are gone, and the deer is no more. And the eagles no longer fly, and when all the world is as quiet and empty as it was at the beginning of time. Even then, the howl of the coyote will still echo over the land.' "

Deed was silent for a moment. Oddly enough, that made her feel better. He chose as his totem an animal that might be a coward, but was one that was almost impossible to kill. Or at least finish off.

She smiled. Maybe he'd get through this alright.

* * *

"YOU WANT TO - " 

Alex glared daggers as he managed to clap a hand over Wood's mouth. "Considering what we're going to do is illegal, you might want to KEEP YOUR VOICE DOWN," he hissed.

Wood batted his hand away. "When you said you wanted to steal something, I assumed you meant gold, or jewels, or horses, or something. You never said anything about kidnapping."

Alex rolled his eyes. "This isn't kidnapping."

"Okay, you never said we were going to steal people. And you sure as hell never said you wanted to steal..." he glanced around furtively, "...the royal family of Kannon."

The furtive glance was rather understandable; Wood had worked in Kannon enough to know the regular spots for a thief to hang out where no questions would be asked (assuming the pay was right). He'd been pleasantly surprised when Alex simply accepted it after he picked a few pockets for necessary funds; selling arms looted from the battle at Myce hadn't been as effective as they'd hoped. Still...

Alex sighed. "Look Wood, don't think of us as the bad guys here - "

"Kind of struck me as that way; I'm a thief. I steal stuff, I don't snatch people."

"Anything can be morally acceptable under the right circumstances. Well," he amended, "almost anything."

"And how would you justify stealing people?"

Alex shrugged as Wood's ale arrived; he didn't drink, but as long as Wood stayed relatively sober, he wouldn't raise a fuss. "In this case, it all depends on who you're...shall we say, 'snatching' them from."

Wood snorted. "And who are we going to snatch Kannon, his wife, two daughters, and son away from?"

Alex managed to hide his grin. It was worth a shot...he waited until Wood had started drinking. "Beld."

Perfectly on cue, Wood's eyes bulged as he sprayed a shot of ale across the table. "WHAT!"

"Lowered voice?" Alex suggested. Wood glared but complied. "Listen, war is coming, and the first hammer stroke is going to fall on Kannon, specifically on Shining Hill itself. If Beld takes down the capitol that easily, he'll have effectively hamstrung the south of Lodoss; no one will dare to oppose him. But if the king escapes, if the capitol falls because it was ALLOWED to fall..."

Wood stared at him. "You're trying to play politics. Who the hell are you?"

Alex smirked. His good spirits had been rising exponentially since he'd fully recovered. Well, there was also the fact that his plan had come together so far; the invasion hadn't hit yet, so they had time to prepare. He didn't really know how much though; all he remembered was that the attack came at night, before the lights had completely gone out. He had at best three days to plan this, at worst, maybe six hours. "Let's just say I don't want Marmo to win this war."

Wood shook his head. "You know, most people would have just found an army to join up with. You're possibly the only person on Lodoss crazy enough to think he can personally shift the course of history."

"There's at least one more," Alex quipped. "Look, are you in or out? You don't want to do this, all I ask is that you stick around long enough to be able to carry news to everyone else in Valis of whether or not I'm still alive."

Wood was silent. Twenty years in an Alanian prison for stealing a loaf of bread. He'd lost that much. The problem was, if Alex hadn't let him out of the prison in Myce, he probably would have lost the rest of his life when the walls collapsed on him. Or he would have been killed when the Marmo finished storming the fortress if he hadn't managed to come up with that crack-brained scheme to win the battle.

It was the battle that sold him though. From what he'd heard from Karl, Alex was crazy enough to stick it through to the end, and from what he'd seen with his own eyes, he knew that the kid was good or lucky enough to make some really weird shit happen. "Alright, I'm in. What's the plan?"

Alex outlined his ideas simply enough. And Wood grinned. Because crazy as it sounded, he had faith. It could work. "Alright, so what first? Alex?"

He snapped back to attention. "Huh? Oh. Um...Wood, go on ahead and take a look at the castle, alright? There's something that's been...bothering me. Just...some kind of a tickle in my head."

"Something I should know about?"

Alex shook his head. "Nah, this is personal. Anyway, you know what to look for, I don't. I lack your...particular education." He smiled as Wood laughed and prepared to stroll away. "I shouldn't be long." Standing, he slipped out the alleyway entrance. He wasn't sure why, but ever since he'd gotten to Lodoss, he'd been...changing. It wasn't just the knowledge that made him nervous; he was getting stronger bit by bit. At first he'd just thought it was the bow and axe training, but he'd noticed that he was getting stronger even though he no longer practiced (he'd left the bow with Karl). Another thing he'd noticed was that when he was focusing hard enough, or when he wasn't focusing at all, his senses seemed...sharper. Not smell, but his eyesight was steadily growing sharper, and as for his hearing...

His hearing was good enough that he could easily pick out various conversations around the room. One in particular which had stirred rather unpleasant memories of his first hour in Lodoss.

He found the two...actually, he wasn't sure of their profession. Beyond the fact that it was disreputable, anyway. He didn't have to be in the same alleys as them; he could hear them even the full length, and the conversation was rapidly stimulating bile and adrenaline both, horror warring with rage.

He wondered idly why the nine-tailed coyote amulet felt warm...

"She really as hot as you say?"

"Heh...I seen her around every once in a while, but I never heard of anyone getting her alone. Anyway, they promised to wait, but you know how those jackasses are, they can't think with nothing that ain't between their legs."

The other laughed. "Oh, and you're any different? Damn! Never did an elf before."

The other shrugged. "Yeah well, she parades that pair of tits around, it's pretty obvious she's asking for it."

"I respectfully disagree."

The first, the one mentioning 'asking for it,' never had time to turn around before the sword Alex had scavenged from Myce sprouted through the front of his throat, a good foot of steel shoved out of his Adams apple. The other spun to see Alex, axe already cocked.

He didn't glare, he just stared at him as coldly as he could. "No way in hell you can run fast enough."

The 'tough' obliged by soiling himself.

Alex smirked nastily. "I couldn't help but overhear. Care to tell me where you were headed?"

"Hey, if I tell anyone they'll - "

Alex's smile was no longer cold. There was now a manic gleam that even the currently emotionally-overwrought thug could sense. Smirking half-madly, Alex carefully drew the sword out from his first victim's neck. "Sever the spine between the third and fourth vertebrae of the neck...where I hit your friend," he helpfully dumbed it down, "and autonomic brain functions cease. Do you know what that means? Your heart stops beating, your lungs stop breathing...everything that functions without you having to think stops, the liver, the kidneys, the spleen, viscera...all you'd feel is a sharp pain in your neck. Then, as you grow short of breath and the blood no longer reaches your brain, you drift into unconsciousness, a sleep that you'll never even realize will never end."

His smile had long since gone past the half-mad mark. "At the other end of the spectrum, we have something known as the Death of a Thousand Cuts (2). You see, it is believed that there are three hundred and thirty three parts of the body, as well as three different ways to inflict damage; to slice, to pierce, and to crush. If I were to do it properly, I would write each part down three times, and put a different way to HURT it, to inflict PAIN upon it. And when I had nine hundred ninety nine pieces of paper with as many injuries, I'd start drawing them at random, and do what each card tells me. Oh, and the thousandth injury would be a quick, relatively painless fatal one; probably that neck cut I just described." By this time, his listener had started to sob. "Do you really think that whoever you answer to could come up with something worse?"

"Th-th-three blocks down, and one alley over."

Alex nodded, his smile suddenly peaceful. "Thank you." Grasping his axe near the head with a reverse grip, he swung it across the thug's temples; he'd have a splitting headache and horrible memories when he came to, but he'd be alive.

Adrenaline having bottomed out, Alex felt himself lean heavily into the alley wall, sinking into a crouch. He felt emotionally and physically sick. That man was the first time he'd ever had to kill another human being. Intellectually, he knew that goblins, ogres, and kobolds were living creatures on a similar level with humans, but intellect and actuality are two different things.

And his little game of 'it's mental scarification time' scared him at least as much as the thug had been. He didn't hurt people that way; he ignored people, he didn't toy with their emotions. How much had this place changed him? Was it something in the air, something on the land itself? Did Kardis' curse change people?

He winced. That would make entirely too much sense. And he refused to accept it outright. It seemed like too much of a convenient scapegoat.

Grimly remembering the dead thug's mention of how little self-control the rest of his gang would have, he forced himself to his feet. He was going to hate himself for killing all those people.

He'd probably hate himself more if he just let them do it.

* * *

The nominal leader (who shall remain nameless) roughly slapped the sobbing elf. "Shut up. You can scream when we give you a reason to." He grinned lecherously, missing teeth and flecks of old meals making the gesture particularly vile. 

The one currently standing guard sighed. He didn't know why they were waiting for Jils and Yorin, but he hadn't been given any choice in the matter. He did wonder why they had to put up with that toothless idiot as the first guy; he'd likely mess her up so bad that no one would be able to enjoy their turns. He paused as someone started towards them, someone way too tall to be either of their gang members. Putting on his most sinister grin, he drew a small knife. "Sorry pal, the road's closed. And wasting my time's gonna cost ya - "

He gasped in pain as the knife in Alex's right hand drew a swift line up his thigh, opening his femoral artery. Roughly spinning the man around, he stabbed him in the back of the neck again before opening the man's throat.

He died too quietly for anyone to really get worried, though the second one noticed. Drawing his own heavy dagger, he started making 'come-here' gestures.

Alex obliged as he whipped out his sword, ramming it to the hilt into his stomach. Spinning him, he aimed carefully at the back and stabbed him halfway between hip and ribcage along the spine, opening the abdominal aorta. Completing the spin, he yanked out his sword and continued forward.

The toothless leader yanked the elf-girl in front of him, his knife to her neck. "Hey! Drop the sword, or she gets it!"

Alex ducked under a swing from the third's nail-studded club, and stabbed upward, through the base of the jaw, piercing the tongue as he rammed it upward into the man's brain. Only after that did he stop to look at the last one. "I'm sorry, you said something?"

Swallowing under the wild glare from the tall stranger, the toothless thug slowly rose, the elf-girl a shield in front of him. "Drop the sword. Drop the knife, or she dies slow." He grinned at Alex's wordless compliance, though his expression was still a bit frightened. "Like her, huh? I did too; cute little thing like her. You came here 'cause you wanted her, right? TAKE HER!"

Alex caught her easily as the man shoved her. Wordlessly, he seized the axe tucked into his belt and brought it down between the charging thug's eyes. Still holding the elf closely to his own body, he walked backwards out of the alley. She'd probably seen what he'd done, but it didn't mean he had to make it too terribly clear. Once clear of the alley, he drew her along the wall; he didn't want the scene even slightly visible. He was a bit relieved to note that there wasn't even any blood visible. "Are you alright?" He felt his stomach lurch at the sight of her eyes; they might have been beautiful under different circumstances, but at the moment were bloodshot. It was the fear in them that sickened him; fear and self-hate. _Why self-hate? For her powerlessness? Or..._ He shuddered. _Or does she think she somehow deserved that?_ "Listen to me. You need to get out of here. Now. Out of Shining Hill, out of Kannon. I'd tell you to leave Lodoss itself if I thought you could." Fumbling for the small bag of coins at his belt, he pressed it into her hand. "I doubt this is enough, but it's all I have. Go."

She stared at him, trembling, as fear began to subside. "Who are you?"

He sighed. "Alex Latrans. Now listen to me, you have to go."

"Why? This is my home..." her voice trailed off as tears threatened to emerge.

Silently asking 'why me,' he gently drew her face back to meet his eyes. "It's not safe for you here anymore. Troops from Marmo are landing, and if they catch someone as lovely as you, what those men just tried will seem like the courtship of a gentleman by comparison." He wasn't quite sure why he'd bothered to mention her looks; maybe because he felt like she needed some kind of assurance of worth. She certainly earned it; she looked a bit like Deed, though blue-eyed. The only real differences were that her hair was pure white as opposed to Deed's pale blonde. Well, that and the fact that Deed wasn't that...well...three dimensional.

Blushing slightly, she turned to leave when she heard, "wait." Turning, she felt fear rise as he started taking off his jacket. _Oh god...he just wants..._ her train of thought derailed as he draped the oversize, flowing garment around her shoulders.

Alex hoped quietly that it wouldn't be winter soon. "You've gotten enough attention for now."

She stared at him as he turned to leave. "My name is Chiffon!" (3) she called.

He stiffened. _I thought she looked familiar. A cross-over, then._ He turned back. "Be safe then, Chiffon." He watched her leave. Only after she'd vanished from his sight did he turn back into the alley. He didn't want to remind himself of what he'd done, but he needed his weapons back.

Besides, he'd have to pawn the daggers. If Wood found out he'd given up all his money, there'd be hell to pay.

He froze. _Good god, how cold have I become? How far am I going to change?_ Shaking his head, he forced himself to take what he could and leave, sifting through their clothing for the handful of coins they'd had among them. It was easy to think heroism was fun when you were leaving; he wondered how many 'heroes' blessed their luck while they were in the middle of committing atrocities.

* * *

Wood stared dully at him. "Geez, what happened? You pick a fight in a butcher shop or something?" 

Alex grimaced. He'd managed to get most of the blood out of his clothes, but there was enough if someone were looking; Woodchuck had, in his years following prison, gotten VERY good at observation. "What's the situation on the castle?"

Wood sighed, shaking his head. "You sure know how to pick it. This thing is a fortress; there are maybe two points of entry, and neither one's any good for getting back out. At least not if you're trying to bring five extra people out."

Alex frowned. He needed an in, and while the back-up plan would work, he'd prefer it another way. More importantly though, he needed a way back OUT. "Alright, give me the lowdown."

Wood gestured. "Okay, first line of defense we have a thirty-foot stone wall; it's about five feet wide at the top; crenellations and machicolations all over the place. There are two gates in and out, one north and one south. Both are double-gates with iron portcullises, and from the look I managed to get, we're also looking at murder holes in the ceiling. Guards are set up in rotating shifts; they change every six hours. Towers are set up at each corner, plus one on either side of each of the gates. Of course, you only have to deal with the wall IF you can manage to get across a fifteen-foot moat." He shook his head. "No way to tell what's past that, but from what I can see there'll be at least another two heavily guarded gates to get in, but we can probably get around those if we sneak through scullery entrances or something."

Alex nodded quietly, looking it over. "Any idea what the guard rotation is going to be at night along the top of the wall?"

Wood shrugged. "If they keep the same pattern at night as they do at day, then they have guards on stationary posts, but it's staggered every twenty feet or so. They wander back and forth, stop to chat with each other, but for the most part they're good to go."

"I assume there are secret passages in and out?"

"Probably; Kannon's a pretty old country, so there was probably a paranoid ruler sometime who built a secret passage in and out, but I'VE never heard of one. Besides, just because there is on doesn't mean that Kannon himself is going to know it. Assuming he's willing to abandon Shining Hill, for that matter."

Alex sighed. "Okay, let's assume for a moment that we'll have to use the back-up plan to get in. Let's just try and scout a way BACK out once we're in."

Wood winced. "I really don't want to risk that other idea of yours; shouldn't we keep looking?"

Alex shook his head. "Sometimes great ideas occur when you're not really thinking about them; we need to plan that part too. And remember, we're most likely going to have to try and escape in the middle of a battle. Try to find places that won't be tactically important, places that'll be mostly ignored by an attacking army. Not to mention the defenders."

They spent the next hour looking around, but...

Wood sighed as he started tearing chunks from a small loaf of bread. "I just can't see you pulling this one off. There's no place that's going to get overlooked."

Alex wasn't convinced. "Look, no one is perfect. So while I may mess up my plan, it's pretty safe to assume that somewhere along the line whoever built the castle and Shining Hill itself screwed up too and no one's ever noticed it before. Another thing; this won't be like fortress Myce. They can't just blast their way through the walls and start marching through holes. The moat means that the only way in or out for a large force will be across the bridges." He mentally blessed whoever had decided against drawbridges.

Wood sighed as he finished dividing a chunk of some kind of white cheese in too. "Yeah, but that screws us over pretty thoroughly too, you know. We can't get in or out except over the bridges."

"You're not listening. I said that's a problem for a large force; there's just the two of us who have to get in. The moat's our ally in this case, not our enemy. People will watch the shores of the moat from the castle, and people will be watching the walls, but no one will really notice what happens to the moat itself. If they decide to lay siege to the castle, they'll have to fill in tracks on the moat if they want to use siege towers or scaling ladders, and I don't see Beld using something that slow. Let's concentrate on the moat. What's its source? What feeds it?"

Wood shrugged. "The river, I guess. It flows south from the mountain range, cutting around the whole city. I think there's some kind of pump or something that raises the water enough to reach the castle, pumping water there from the river."

Alex frowned. "Wait, you mean some kind of aqueduct? How'd they build that?"

"I think it's a leftover from the Age of Sorcery. Why?"

"Show me."

The aqueduct didn't look like it belonged in Lodoss; he could have seen it in the ruins of some ancient roman town, or the Castle of Cagliostro. Not Lodoss, though. Shining hill wasn't all that tall, really; maybe fifty feet to the summit. The aqueduct wasn't quite that high; it disappeared into the ground about five feet before reach the crest of the summit. It was solid stone, about five feet wide and forty five feet tall, buttressed and arched save along the five foot tall stone form that actually held the aqueduct. It stretched almost a half a mile to the north, where a massive tower hooked up to a system of windmills in conjunction with a huge waterwheel kept the water flowing high enough for gravity to pull it the rest of the way.

Alex didn't smile, though it was an effort. Still, he didn't want to get his hopes up. "Let's head for the towers. I need to get a closer look."

Wood's eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything. When they arrived though, Alex's smile blossomed. The tower was stone, windmills attached on both sides. While it WAS important enough to the king to warrant guards, they were young and not particularly vigilant; who cared about a full moat? One that wasn't full of water would stop people just as readily as a full one. Wood was certainly good enough to slip inside; Alex managed it with...shall we say a bit more difficulty. Fortunately, no guards had been stationed inside. The windmills drove a series of small waterwheels; each one filled a reservoir that in turn fed the next wheel up. The largest wheel at the base was driven by water current, managing to raise the water a fifth of the way.

The best news however was outside. To ensure that the wheels would function even without wind, a massive windlass had been set up that would be hauled by horse teams. Granted they weren't saddle horses (they were almost as tall as Alex at the shoulder), but they were certainly going to be tireless.

Alex grinned. "Wood, I think we may have found our out."

* * *

Of course, just finding the route didn't end it; it took a while to find the supplies they needed. Finding a boat that was light enough was hard enough; actually getting it into the aqueduct would be a gigantic pain. It was quickly decided that there was no way of getting it into the moat unnoticed; they had to float it down the duct and intercept it at the grate. 

Just because a pair of guards were dumb enough not to notice a pair of people sneaking past DIDN'T mean they were dumb enough to miss a pair of people trying to sneak a boat into a tower in the middle of a forest.

'Carelessly' letting slip that the tower didn't just pump water but was also used for sifting and panning gold, they managed to dupe a pair of idiots into trying to break in; they were clumsy enough to get caught, but were also fast enough to draw the guards away long enough for Wood and Alex to get inside. Without any guards in there, they were able to haul the small skiff up the ladders and down the pipe, lanterns and candles safely stowed away under oilcloth.

There was barely any current; Alex considered that a plus as they poled it the half mile they needed to reach the entryway into the moat. There was a slight current moving down the tunnel from where the water began to flow over the lip into the moat, but it was so slight that neither of them felt any particular need to worry about it. An iron-barred grate blocked the entry, but Wood had taken the time to put together a thief's toolbox, and one of his pieces of equipment was a small hacksaw. It took awhile, but they managed to cut out two bars; any more and the boat would fall out, but as long as none of their 'victims' were all that fat, it should be fine.

Wood sighed as they began the slow, sloppy trek back to one of the open head-spaces in the aqueduct; they were just barely large enough for a person. It would have been too convenient for them to be large enough to fit a boat. "You know, the plan might work, but I think we're underestimating just how hard it'll be to fight past the Marmo to get them to the grate." He paused, frowning. "Come to think of it, how _are_ we going to get them across the moat?"

"Don't worry about that part, worry more about getting them _to_ the moat. That's the part that'll most likely get us killed."

"Cheerful thought, isn't it." Wood shook his head. "I just wish we had some kind of secret weapon or something; a shame we didn't think to bring Slayn with us; being able to put the guards to sleep or blow through walls would be nice."

Alex frowned in thought. "...you know, there are a few things I could try. Problem is, they might end up being a bit expensive. How much is this going to be worth to you?"

"If it might save our lives, I'll spend the money. I've got a cup of dice that'll earn us our money back. Or would, if you'd let me gamble once in a while."

Alex held out a hand. "Give me your money. All of it." He ignored Wood's protests. "I don't know if it'll work, I don't know if I'll be able to find what I need, and I don't know if I can afford it anyway. If it doesn't look like it'll work, you can get your money back. Deal?"

Wood sighed, but handed over his pouch. Not without palming a few coins first, but he felt he was justified. "This better work."

* * *

It's amazing what you can learn from reading. For instance, if you read the book Fight Club rather than just renting the movie, you can learn all kinds of useful things. To make dynamite for example; combine a 98 concentration of fuming nitric acid with three times it's mass in sulfuric acid; make sure the container you're doing this in is floating in a tub full of ice water. Then, add glycerin drop by drop and you get nitroglycerin; they don't tell you the precise amount, but it's presumable that some kind reaction would occur. Mix that with sawdust and a few other choice chemicals, and you get stable dynamite. 

The problem Alex was facing was that no one would ever have heard of nitric or sulfuric acid, let alone a 98 fuming concentration. Besides which, nitroglycerin was notoriously unstable; tiny shockwaves set it off, and screwing up while mixing a high explosive was not his idea of a good time.

Still, he'd gone through that stage of sullen rebelliousness when he was a kid, so he'd learned some potentially anarchistic mixes.

Combine saltpeter (KNO3, or potassium nitrate) and table sugar in a three to two ratio by mass. Melt them together under low heat, and you get a sticky brown mass the approximate density and consistency of caramel. Stick a fuse of some kind in this before it sets. When burnt, this mix will release HUGE amounts of dense white smoke.

Alex however was far more interested in the possibilities of a somewhat more stable explosive that could be made by mixing charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur. It would lack the...potency of dynamite, but this was at least one he could make. In theory, anyway.

* * *

Wagnard smirked as he surveyed the countryside. "The conquest of Shining Hill will bring all the south of Lodoss under your command, my lord." 

Bluff and massive, Beld looked like some kind of battle-scarred lion given human form. Darkly tanned skin was seamed with paler scars, a wild shock of orange-red hair tumbling every possible direction down his head. Dressed in matte black armor traced in gold with a fur-lined cape, he looked more the part of some Viking warlord than a king in his own right.

His horse...his horse gave the unsettling impression that it wasn't entirely mortal. Tusks that belonged on a boar jutted from the massive, heavily-muscled creature's jaws, while amethyst eyes devoid of pupil or white glared madly under its armor.

Wagnard bowed slowly in reverence. "May the divine grace of Falaris shield us this day."

Beld snorted. "Falaris' grace won't be necessary. I'll take back the power long denied him with my own two hands!" Raising Soul Crusher, he smirked darkly as his army charged.

* * *

Wood stared. "THAT'S your big surprise? Clay pots, some kind of candles and..." he stared, "...toy boats?" 

Alex smiled. He'd managed to test the mixes, and they worked nicely. He just hoped they'd work now, or he would feel REALLY stupid about using their money up on things that really wouldn't work very well. "The clay pots are full of a special...let's call it a potion. They're coated in pitch, so the outside should burn nicely. Hold the chain attached and use that to throw it at your target. Oh, one thing, and this is important; do NOT let the jars break once they're lit if you're still terribly close; you want to be at least ten feet away. Probably more, really. Light the wicks on the candles and set them down someplace and they'll cover your escape; try not to use too many of them; I want to save them for after we actually get the family out of here."

Wood sighed as he accepted a padded satchel with two of the fist-sized pots, and an oil-cloth bundle with ten small candles each about the size of his thumb. "You didn't spend ALL our money on this, did you?"

"No, only about half."

"HALF?"

Alex tossed him back the purse. "Total, you understand; I spent all of mine first."

Wood sighed in relief. "What about the toy boats?"

"They'll float the 'candles' nicely. Anyway, we need to get ready for tonight's watch; if nothing happens, you can sleep tomorrow during the day," he added to head off Wood's grumbles about exhaustion. He paused as he started towards a possible entry point they'd found; one of the towers next to the gates had been poorly finished; if they could get to the joint where wall met square tower, they'd be able to scale it. "Wood, one more thing. If we screw up, this was all my fault."

"You're goddamn right it's your fault."

"No, you don't understand. This was my plan entirely, but only if we fail. If this works, it was all you. Got it?"

Wood paused as they neared the moat. "Whoa, why don't you want any credit?"

Alex shrugged. "I don't like notoriety. I'd prefer no one ever had any reason to suspect that I could manage to break in and out of a royal family's castle." Further words were cut off as screams suddenly began; faint at first, but growing.

Wood grabbed Alex's arm. "Wait!"

Alex glared at him. "What? I'm not going to stand here and wait - "

"LISTEN!" Wood hissed. "You've been talking about how Marmo will attack one night for the past three days. What do you think that is right now?"

Alex stared at him. "But..."

Wood sighed. "Kid, first rule of being a thief. You get the job done. And this is the distraction we need."

Alex sighed as he thought about it. He wanted to fight, but he didn't really have a choice. The knowledge that the royal family was clean away would stop the battle a lot faster than any attempts of his to win it; this wasn't a small band of goblins or a battalion he was being backed up against. He couldn't win this fight; he had a job to do. "No. Not yet. The guards will be on the lookout now; sooner or later an army will charge by, and we can just pretend to be them long enough to get close."

Wood smacked him. "If we let an army get that close, the guards will be protecting the gate, and how are we going to slip past them? We have to do this now!" Fitting words to action, he slipped into the shadows provided by the railing of the bridge into the palace and started slinking towards the gate. Recognizing the better plan, Alex joined him. The hardest part was at the beginning; guards almost never look straight down. If someone was that close already, it was generally agreed that the guards had already failed. The closer they got, the easier it got, ironically enough.

The only hang-up was getting over the railing and managing the five-foot trip across the face to the join of the walls. They managed to jam daggers far enough in between the stones to give them the hand holds they needed. Once there, it was actually easier to get up the wall, though slow going all the same. It only took them about two minutes to reach the top of the wall. Luckily, the fighting was being slowed by the goblins' looting instincts; they'd be forced into a disciplined charge once they were ready to storm the castle, but for they were a horde, not an army.

Wood and Alex were forced to wait, sweating for almost another two minutes until they had a clear shot at getting over the top of the wall. By the time they were over, they were torn between being pissed and exhausted.

Yanking a rope out of his pack, Alex slung an already-tied noose around one of the crenellations and dropped the end down the wall's outside. They'd chosen the north gate to enter, hoping that most of the fighting would be diverted to the south. Assuming Beld didn't try to launch a surprise attack anyway, but Beld wasn't much of a tricky tactician; he left that to Ashram, and Alex was praying that the Black Knight hadn't caught up yet.

Wood and Alex managed to slink down the narrow stairs of the wall without getting caught, but once down a guard bringing up the rear of a squad noticed them. They were lucky in that he didn't try to bring back-up; jogging over with a determined look on his face, it was almost comical to watch the expression change as Alex whipped his axe around the man's temples, hammer-end first. His helmet absorbed enough force to keep it from being a killing blow, but it would definitely put him down. Unfortunately, the sound of metal on metal was enough to draw attention; they had to sprint to keep from being caught.

Panting, Wood glanced around furtively. "Okay, we're in. Didn't think it'd work, but it did. Now, any bright ideas about finding our marks?"

"Castles were originally designed as basically more comfortable forts; they're defensive locations. Just because they got prettier doesn't change their purpose; the Royal Family will probably be in the center, in the most defensible place on Shining Hill."

"And we get to break in. Swell." Sighing, Wood loped off. "Come on, let's find a kitchen or page's entrance or something; they probably won't be bothering to guard the herb garden."

Wishful thinking.

Alex started pulling a small blowgun out of the thief's pack. "Think you can cut around to the other side without them seeing you?"

Wood nodded as he pulled out a blackjack. "Get them curious enough to turn their backs to me and I should be able to knock them out." Abruptly he was gone. Alex almost jumped; he knew Wood was good at this, but he'd never seen him do that particular trick before. Pulling out a pair of darts, he loaded the first into the short, hollow tube. Carved from wood and tufted with carded wool, they wouldn't be able to do any real damage; they'd sting, and be enough to get someone's attention, but that was about it. There was another version that was made from metal, but Wood was categorically too cheap to buy them. Not so much because they were expensive or ineffective, but more because the drugs (knock-out, paralysis, or poison) needed to make it work were.

The wooden ones did their job nicely as first one, then the second guard slapped their hands against their necks at the sudden stabbing pain. Both turned towards the 'whistling' noise just long enough for Wood to administer a double-top to the back of each skull.

Dragging them both in after them, they left them hidden behind a stack of unidentified burlap bags. Pausing long enough to try and settle his nerves, Alex quickly followed.

One gate down...lord only knew how many to go.

* * *

King Kannon was not a warrior king. Compared to King Fahn of Valis, or King Kashue of Flaim, or even Prince Jester of Myce, he was NOT an imposing man. Compared to Kadamos of Alania...well, he had to have _something_ going for him. While only a bit taller than average and rather slight, he had a certain...dignity about him. His close-cut gray hair under a very simple crown told a quite accurate story of the scholarly king. He felt little love for the duties of a monarch; oh, he did them and did them well, and he genuinely cared about the well-being of his country, but he was NOT the man to defend it. 

And most people knew it.

The dark elf smirked at him. "Come now your majesty, this is a perfectly reasonable request. The Emperor Beld has no particular desire to slaughter your subjects, though he will if necessary. Simply order your troops to surrender, and we can put all this unpleasantness behind us."

Kannon may not have been a warrior, but he was a king, and he had the pride of one. "It would be better for all Kannon to die rather than to acquiesce to Marmo."

The dark elf sneered as he strode closer. Kashue would have cleaved him in two if he dared to draw closer; it was a deliberate snub against Kannon's weaknesses. "Regardless of whether or not you surrender, Kannon will fall. But if it puts your mind at ease, rest assured; _you_ will die, but the rest of your country will likely survive. There's no real point in killing you off, is there? You are, after all, just a road to the REAL war."

Kannon's fists clenched, but he held his tongue and temper in check. The elf wouldn't have bothered to talk unless he had been ordered to; there was nothing to be gained from antagonizing him.

Smirking, the elf stepped back. "But if that's your wish, I'll happily convey those terms to his majesty Beld." Sweeping a mocking bow, he chanted the teleportation spell.

In the instant between completion and execution, a pair of daggers flashed through the door; one in the stomach, the other piercing the eye cleanly. The spell had initiated already, but the caster would be dead when he rematerialized.

Alex smirked, though it took some energy. Between running, fighting, and hiding (from Marmo infiltrators at times, Kannon soldiers at others), he was getting a bit tired. "I once heard that a picture speaks a thousand words. Though they'll most likely be curses."

Kannon stared at the two scruffy individuals who were currently ushering his wife and children in beside him. "Who..."

Alex swept his hood off his head. "Your majesty, four days ago a small battalion of Marmo troops attacked Fortress Myce, along your northern border with Alania. They were driven back, but the fort has since been abandoned. We came to warn you of the assault, but we've reached you too late; the main forces of Marmo have landed on your southern shores, and have launched a full offensive."

"I'm well aware we're under attack," Kannon growled. "Who are you, and why have you come here?"

"My name is Alex Latrans. My friend," he gestured to a somewhat startled Wood, "is named Woodchuck. We came here, under no one's orders, to try and prevent you and your family from being killed or captured." Dropping the formal tone, he sheathed his axe. "We have a way out of here, if you're interested. It's not particularly comfortable, but it should still be secure."

Kannon's eyes narrowed. "And why should we trust you?"

Alex shrugged. "Well, considering that you're most likely going to die without our help, what other reason could we have had for coming here? I mean really, you think we snuck into a castle during a battle, fought past your guards and Marmo saboteurs just so we could sit around and laugh at you?"

"The elf did," Ariel felt constrained to mention. Kannon's oldest daughter, she took after him in build and temperament; a shy, mousy little girl seventeen years old. Who for some strange (and mildly creepy) reason kept staring at Woodchuck and blushing.

"...alright, the elf snuck in to gloat. But HE didn't have to nearly get killed in the process."

"He got killed all the way," Miranda pointed out. Tall and lean, she took more after her mother in both temperament and build, though she'd inherited blonde hair from her father.

"...he only got killed AFTER he snuck in. He had no intention of actually risking himself, and he was ordered to do so as a messenger."

"How would YOU know that?"

Alex decided he wasn't going to particularly like Miranda. "He was talking to your father when he arrived, and he mentioned bringing news back to Beld. Now then, are we going to leave, or stay?"

Kannon sighed as he sank back into a chair. "I can't leave. I will not abandon my people."

"...may I speak to you privately for a moment, your majesty?" Alex ushered the king back towards a window. "I'm wondering what you think you can accomplish by remaining here. Your men are not the equal of the Marmo; I mean no slight against them, but it's simple truth. Even if they were, they're outnumbered. The castle is well-built, but it's going to fall soon. You have to leave now, or you won't make it."

King Kannon shook his head. "What people would fight for a king too cowardly to stand by them? This is my duty as king; take my children and wife. Keep them safe, and I'll bless you for it. _I_ can't go anywhere."

Alex was quiet for a moment. "Have you ever heard of something called the Social Contract? I think it was proposed by Thomas Locke. He states in it that the whole feudal system of ruler and liegeman is based on this unwritten and unspoken contract. Basically, the liegeman's duties are to serve this ruler, to provide him the means necessary for a luxurious life, to fight in his armies, to provide his needs. In return, the ruler sees to it that his entire country protects its interests, raises armies to fight for the liegemen, for the subjects, and generally sees to it that the subject's life is good."

Kannon laughed sadly. "Sounds to me like you just gave me a better reason to stay; I have to fulfill my side of the contract."

"No. You're running from the consequences of breaking it. Just like merchants in my land who threw themselves from towers when faced with their duplicity, or ruination. You're taking the easy way out."

Kannon stared at him. He was smaller than Alex, shorter and slighter, but between the taunting from the dark elf and now this, he'd had enough. "How dare you! – " he snarled as he lunged.

Alex batted his hands aside and shoved him into the wall. Wood winced as he managed to keep Miranda and Larth from charging, though in Larth's case it took a knife placed threateningly near the groin. "Alex isn't going to hurt your father; just let them argue it out."

Alex glared at the king; he'd just risked his life and precious time to come and try to rescue him, and the bloody stubborn idiot was going to ruin it all because he thought dying for his country would make him remembered as a brave man. "Listen closely. Shining Hill is lost. I'm sorry, but there is no way that the guard of the castle can defend it; those of your subjects in this city who are not dead or retreating will die, run away, or surrender. That is your cross to bear, and I sympathize." He plowed ahead as he belatedly realized that no one on Lodoss would understand that particular phrase. "But Kannon itself is not lost. Not yet, anyway. If you surrender, if you die here then there's nothing to unite this country; I haven't heard people say much about your children, so it's unlikely they'll ever be true rulers of their own merit if Kannon falls. YOU are the ruler of Kannon, and you still have a responsibility to defend it."

King Kannon glared at him. "How? What is there to defend, if not Shining Hill?"

Alex fought the urge to slap him silly. "Shining Hill is a handful of square miles out of a country with thousands to chose from. One city falling does NOT mean the end of the country, not if there's any organized chunk of the government still in any shape to oppose the fall. You have to raise the army to defeat Marmo, THAT is your duty."

Wood watched as the two continued arguing, shaking his head. Kannon's refusals and arguments seemed to be losing steam; Alex was bringing him around. Wood just hoped they finished up quickly; it couldn't possibly take much longer for Marmo to storm the keep. He turned, an itch at the back of his neck. "Did you need something?"

Ariel 'eeped,' blushing as she turned away. "I...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare."

Wood grinned at her. "What, never seen a thief before?"

Miranda snorted at her older sister's continuing stammers. "She's been reading these silly stories about a master thief who 'steals the hearts of princesses,' or something like that," she quipped.

"MIRANDA!"

What could potentially have evolved into a catfight was neatly defused as the doors to the king's chamber boomed open, causing everyone there to visibly jump.

Bloodied and fatigued, the commander of the royal guard staggered inside. "My lord, we're under..." he trailed off as he realized that everyone was a few steps ahead. And that there were several shady individuals accosting the royal family. Fumbling for his sword, he paused as he noticed Ariel frantically shaking her head. "Who are these..." whatever euphemism he had prepared was cut off as Kannon rejoined them.

"These men came to escort me to Valis, commander. You can trust them."

Reluctantly (though relieved he'd get a little bit longer to rest), he did so. "Your majesty, Valis? What is going on?"

Kannon gestured for Alex, a bit sullenly but willingly enough. Sighing, he dragged a hand through his hair, trying to settle it. "The King has decided to retreat."

"WHAT?"

Kannon soothed him. "Commander, Shining Hill cannot stand; we were simply unprepared for an assault of this...magnitude. We cannot hope to hold the capitol; we must gain the aid of our allies if we are to have any hope of defending our land."

He nodded slowly. "And your orders for the guard?"

"We will follow this man's plan," Kannon stated firmly.

Alex fought the urge to glare at him. _So if this gets screwed up, it's my fault and not yours, right? Remind me never to save your life again._ Composing himself, he tried to act as much like a commander as he could. "Your men are to hold the southern gate of the castle; concentrate your attack there. You will not need to do so for long however; ten to fifteen minutes should be long enough for the king and his family to escape. Try to secure escape routes while you can; order a retreat the second the castle walls are breached. Your men are to cut northeast from the city; once clear of the battle zone, disperse along routes of your own choosing. Your men are to spread the alarm to all villages and cities along their routes; Marmo is attacking. Gather any recruits you can, and lead them north and west into Valis."

The commander snapped a salute. "Understood sir." He hesitated. "What route will you be taking to escape?"

Alex considered, but doubted the man could be captured and interrogated quickly enough for it to matter. Though he winced at the thought, it was getting easier. "We intend to take them to the windmills and pump stations that feed the moat, north of the city. We're going to commandeer some of the horses there and ride as straight and fast to Valis as possible. I know," he broke in, "that they're not saddle horses, but they're the best we can do."

The commander nodded. "I'll order my men to avoid the pumping station to avoid drawing suspicion."

"Don't bother," Alex assured him. "By the time you've begun the retreat, we should have everything we need and be gone. Besides, it's close enough that they'd pick up the trail on routine scouting even if your men didn't draw any attention." Returning the man's salute, Alex watched as he left. "Your majesty, are their any ways out of here other than through the north or south gates?" He grimaced at Kannon's head shake. "Alright then, we have no choice. Follow me."

* * *

Alex stifled a 'WHAT?' as Wood continued 'subtly' coughing. The escape had worked...sort of. Well, they were all out, they were all relatively unhurt, and there was no reason to believe Marmo was on their trail yet. Who wouldn't qualify that as a success? 

Okay, there had been problems. Alex had been forced to use one of his make-shift grenades to take out a squad of goblins that had managed to scale the walls; it may not have been such a good idea to tell the soldiers not to defend the northern gate. Of course, after watching him use a pot to 'summon the flame of destruction,' as Ariel had put it, everyone was staring at him, trying to keep from being noticed doing so for that matter too; they seemed convinced he was a sorcerer.

Getting up the wall had been easy enough, but getting down... "WHAT?" he finally snapped.

Wood turned towards Miranda; she was the only one who didn't care if he noticed her. In fact, she was hoping that he WOULD notice her. "Couldn't you have come up with something better than tossing her off a thirty-foot wall?"

Alex sighed. THAT had been the major problem with the escape. Kannon had insisted his children and wife go before him; reasonable, really. The problem was that while Wood had been willing to start climbing down, no one else would; Larth wanted to stay and help defend his father if necessary (the kid seemed obsessed with knighthood). Ariel was nervous, their mother was concerned it wasn't safe, and Miranda...

(Flashback)

"_You expect us to swim through a moat to freedom? You've got to be kidding!"_

"_...we don't really have all that many options, you know. It's this or stay and get captured."_

"_I don't care! Figure something else out!"_

(End flashback)

It had reached the point of becoming a shouting match in a near-death situation, Miranda sniping at him nonstop, Ariel interjecting often enough to try and quiet her sister, Larth shouting that he would fight a path to freedom, and their mother trying to quiet them both as loudly as she could. Alex finally shoved a rag in Miranda's mouth to make sure she didn't scream and bodily flung her over the wall. She'd hit with that kind of popping splash that just about everyone recognizes as the sign of a belly-flop; Alex had heard it with a certain small amount of...satisfaction.

It served remarkably well at quieting the argument. Larth very meekly started down the wall, his mother following quickly after him. Ariel tentatively pointed out that she probably wasn't strong enough to climb down, so Alex hauled the rope back up, tied a harness in the bottom, and lowered her down. Kannon climbed down himself, but Alex elected to just jump off himself.

After that though, the escape went a bit more smoothly. Wood had had the sense to get everyone under the bridge as quickly as possible; the moat was about ten feet deep though, so by the time everyone was down, they were all rather tired of treading water. It had quickly been decided that Miranda, Ariel, Kannon, and Else (his wife) would get the boat, while Alex pulled it with Wood and Larth pushing. Before setting out, Alex finally showed off his use of the toy boats. Putting a single one of his smoke bombs in each, he lit them and floated them out around the moat. It didn't work quite as he'd planned (he'd hoped for a cloud dense enough to cover the whole castle), but it worked nicely; it created an effect that convinced the more superstitious soldiers to believe some kind of magic, evil fog was rising off the water.

Still, after slipping at least a dozen times (he'd stopped counting after the seventh time) hauling a canoe down a five foot shaft (when he was over six feet tall), all with a pissed off princess glaring at him...

He was swiftly descending into a foul mood.

Larth rode forward; he at least was being civil. Unfortunately, that was mainly because he was over-awed by Wood's tales of their battle; the thief had done something else respectable, and damned if he wasn't going to milk it for all it was worth. "What do you think will happen when we arrive in Valis?"

Alex shrugged; he didn't really want to talk, but he'd embrace the opportunity for something to think about other than the pissy little princess. "I haven't the faintest idea. Fahn will certainly give you a royal welcome, but as for what you can expect in the battle, I couldn't say." He frowned at the look of shocked awe on Larth's face. _What_...he groaned. He hadn't used an honorific; now the kid probably thought he had the ear of royalty or something.

In the course of the day, Alex had gone through a gamut of emotions; worry, apprehension, anger, exhaustion, relief, happiness...you get the idea.

As they reached the bend in the road that would take them through the only valley through Kannon's mountains this far south however, everything was washed away. No more anger, no more irritation, no more relief in progress, no more pride in success, no more anticipation of a brief period of time that wouldn't involve killing anyone or people trying to kill him...No, all emotions were washed away by one other.

Fear.

Pure, unadulterated fear.

Ashram's eyes narrowed at the sight before him. He'd sent his men to join Beld's forces; the survivors of the scouting party would likely go on to become a core of veterans he could depend on. Still, they needed something to improve their morale, and a slaughter would be just the thing. He'd just now been wondering what had happened following their failed foray into Alania as he took a private scouting run.

Lo and behold, the object of his thoughts appeared.

Alex carefully slipped off the pouch holding his two remaining bombs. They would have been perfect weapons against Ashram now (you know, when he's still hopelessly out-classed), but unfortunately they had agreed to ride without torches. There wouldn't be any time to light one of the bombs; by the time it caught, Ashram would be among them. Instead, Alex handed it to Wood. "Take them north of here Wood; once they're clear of Kannon's northern border, go due north, to the point where a group would exit from the forest of no return. Well, assuming that the party knew how to get there in the first place. I'll catch up to you."

Wood stared at him. "Alex, have you finally lost your mind? A lot of the soldiers from Myce were wondering, you know. That's ASHRAM. Fahn might be able to beat him, but only because he's got a magic sword; Kashue would lose to this guy, and you are no Kashue."

Alex smiled faintly. Whenever Ashram and Parn had fought, the Black Knight had held back, seeming to take a certain amusement in the bronze-armored fighter's antics. Since he was kind of a fill-in for Parn, he was hopeful that he'd get the same indulgence. "I'm not here to beat him, I'm here to distract him. If I can just get him off from his horse, there's a decent chance I can run away; that armor'll weigh him down." Not waiting for further arguments (and praying his bladder stayed under his conscious control), he dug heels into the plow horse he was currently riding, sending it into a lumbering trot straight at Ashram.

Wood bit back a curse. Whipping out a handful of knives, he bellowed at Kannon, "GET THEM OUT OF HERE!" Cocking his arm, he gauged the target and flung three knives at the last possible second, aiming for Ashram's right side. With Alex charging on the left, he'd stand a chance; Ashram would have to block the other side just as Alex charged. Praying that Alex would remain safe, Wood turned his horse and charged.

Though a few miles down the road, he'd most likely stop and wonder why the hell he had been so eager to obey Alex's commands.

Alex didn't bother trying to draw a weapon; Ashram's armor was strong enough that maybe a battle axe could cut it, but a light sword propelled by HIS skinny arms? Likewise, his own axe would be worthless. Instead, he gathered his feet under him, and at the last second bodily flung himself at Ashram, tackling him from the horse and praying that the impact would knock the wind out of the black knight.

Unfortunately, Ashram was apparently trained in whatever was the Lodoss equivalent of Aikijujitsu. Though a bit startled by the reckless attack, he bent backwards, arching his back smoothly to arrest his fall on a single hand (his other being locked between his and Alex's bodies. He managed to flip over, bearing Alex to the ground under him; ironically knocking the wind out of him. A gauntleted hand to the temple put him into the realm of unconsciousness. Standing smoothly, Ashram gave the man an odd look. Tall enough to stare him in the eye, when he would tower over most. Certainly not a strong man, but clearly able to fight and fight hard.

And intelligent enough to formulate and use good tactics on the fly.

Eyes narrowed, Ashram stooped and easily hefted Alex's hundred and sixty pounds. Dumping him over the back of the plow horse, he took hold of the lead reins as he mounted his own stallion. Granted, the boy was nothing of danger now, but having experienced a similar ascent, Ashram was able to recognize the signs of future greatness. Or at least potential greatness.

Better to have the boy in his camp than the enemy's.

That decision would likely come back to haunt him.

* * *

Pain. 

That was Alex's first impression, though this was a bit of a different one than what he usually woke up to. Usually he woke up to the pain of being completely drained, the pain of cuts and bruises as well as the deep-muscle ache that seemed to accompany Etoh's healing treatments.

This time it was just a throbbing in his head, centered on the left temple.

Groaning, he put a hand to his head. Or tried anyway; he finally noticed the other pains. A kind of muted tingling in his feet from the ropes binding them together; the raw ache of rope burn on bare wrists tied behind his back. Wincing, he managed to lever himself to his knees, and carefully stood.

"Are you alright?"

He froze. Very slowly, he started turning to the voice that quite clearly had to be a figment of his imagination because there was no way that she was actually here after he told her that Marmo was invading and she couldn't possibly be in a prison with him because she wasn't even supposed to be in Kannon –

Nope. No such luck.

"Chiffon, what the hell are you doing here?"

The half-elf flushed, partially in shame at disobeying him, partially in pleasure. _He remembered my name._ Shifting uncomfortably, she refused to meet his open gaze. "I...I followed you. Or tried to; I was walking along the western sea road, and then I saw you and those other people walking away. I...I decided to try and leave with you."

"Fair enough. How did you end up here? I mean, I assume that this is a Marmo war camp or something that we're being held prisoner in. Were you captured?"

She nodded silently. "When I saw you attack that black-armored knight, I got worried. I followed him, but I was caught by a scouting party."

Alex stared dully at her. "...WHY, PRECISELY, did you decide to follow me after I was beaten? Why, when you realized that I was being taken to the place I _specifically_ told you not to come to, did you follow?"

She didn't answer.

"I'm waiting."

"...I was worried about you."

"You should have left!" he snapped. "I didn't save you just to see you treated worse when I COULDN'T do anything!"

Chiffon's answer was quiet, and the pain in it... "what else was I supposed to do? In the middle of a city full of royal guards I wasn't safe; how safe was I going to be alone on a wilderness road? I...I wasn't going to try to rescue you," she admitted, shame and tears creeping into her expression. "I was hoping you'd fight your way out and..."

"...And you were hoping I could protect you on the way out." He felt like an utter heel; he was getting better at this whole self-sufficiency thing, and he'd automatically expected it from her. "Why didn't you go after the group that was with me? They could have protected you."

"Why would they bother? I'm not a human being. Would they care like you did? None of them were there when you saved me."

"You could have just told them I saved you."

"...Why would they believe me?"

Alex sighed. He had to remember where he'd found her; she was in the process of being brutalized. He couldn't expect much trust out of her. Gently lowering himself onto his rear, he drew his knees to his chest, threading his feet through the loop made by his bound arms. "Chiffon, I'll try and help you out of this, but I don't think I'm going to be able to get out on my own, alright? You'll have to go alone."

She nodded silently.

"Not gonna happen," a crude voice announced. The soldier that entered the tent holding the two of them was vaguely familiar; the scar across his nose clinched it. He was that idiot who was going to get thrashed for getting fresh with Pirotess in episode six.

Apparently he had a thing for pointed ears, as he immediately started moving for Chiffon. He didn't bother trying to be clever as he began crudely groping her.

Alex seethed inside, but this time was different. He wasn't in a position where he could arbitrarily gut the man. At least not yet. "Better get your feels now. After all, those fingers are the biggest thing a little string-bean like you could offer a woman."

The man stiffened at the slight. Roughly flinging Chiffon to the side, he crossed to Alex and kicked him in the face.

He didn't even feel it.

Grabbing him by the front of his shirt, he hauled Alex to his feet. "Pal, just for that I'm gonna make you watch me put it in your little tramp..." he frowned. "Hey, aren't your hands supposed to be behind your back?"

Alex just smiled sweetly as he grabbed the man's shirt and rammed his forehead into the cartilage of the nose as hard as he could. It was enough to stagger the man, but not enough to put him down. Stooping to grab an abandoned metal mug, he hopped forward (his legs were still bound, remember) and hit him as hard as he could. He managed to put him on the ground with this blow, but he was still groaning. So Alex knelt and hit him again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Chiffon finally stopped him. "...It's alright, he's not going to hurt you."

Alex blink-blinked. He'd kind of lost track of the fact that the man was already unconscious. Shaking his head, he stooped to pull out his dagger, ignoring the frantic reassurances that he didn't have to kill the man. Slicing the ropes around his ankles, he strode over to a low wooden table and stabbed the knife into it hard enough to make it stick. Bracing the pommel against his stomach, he sawed at the ropes around his wrists. Finishing that, he approached Chiffon, only to watch as she scooted away from him.

It was then he realized that his face and shirt were still blood-splattered from having just broken a nose. Smiling apologetically, he knelt and cut the ropes off her wrists. "Listen, I'm going to try and get you out of here. I know you don't have a whole lot of reasons to trust a human, but I'm asking for it anyway. Will you trust me?" His smile turned relieved as she managed an uncertain smile of her own. "Alright, hold on one second." Pulling off his shirt, he shoved it against the downed soldier's face before slipping off his maroon shirt and armored vest. Slipping the garments over his head, he winced. Judging from the smell, he believed in bathing on a monthly interval. The pants were too short, but he pulled them on anyway; the high tops of his boots were long enough to hide it. Buckling on the sword, he wiped a little bit of the blood off his face, though he wasn't too careful about it; it might add to his disguise. Retrieving the longest piece of rope that remained, he made a loose running noose in it. "Alright, I'm going to need to put this on your wrists; it shouldn't hurt, but I need you to look like you're still a prisoner. And...I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to be rough. I'm sorry."

Chiffon smiled at him; she didn't have a great deal of it remaining, but she trusted him. Pulling her slender wrists into his grasp, he shoved her out of the tent. She started, eyes widening at the rough treatment; she hadn't expected him to be this...categorically rough. She'd expected threats or such, but only if someone was looking.

Then the first few kobolds and such showed up, and she decided that if he wanted to fit in he'd need to be a great deal rougher.

Goblins spoke their own language; for that she was grateful. Actually knowing what they meant with their various catcalls and such would likely have turned her stomach, though she had a fair idea of what was being said. The kobolds didn't seem particularly interested in her, but that didn't stop her from staring at them as they went about their business, most of them still blood-splattered around the muzzle. For her part of the act, she didn't even have to pretend to be scared; any fear she showed was perfectly legitimate.

Alex managed to catch a few snatches of talk from the passing human soldiers; it didn't take long between that and the smells to find the paddock. Kicking the goblin in charge, he glared at it as hard as he knew how. "Get your lazy ass moving, point-ears! I need a horse big enough to carry me and the wench."

The goblin glared at him, muttering darkly under its breath.

Alex's glare actually hardened. I'd be careful about that kind of talk; we have elves with us, and Ashram won't miss one less of you.

The goblin froze, gaping at him in absolute shock. For her part, Chiffon was too. You can speak goblin?

Alex managed to take it in stride; he was speaking whatever the hell the language of Lodoss was, why not? I speak enough. Now get a horse ready; Wagnard heard we caught someone with a little elf in them, and he figures she'll be useful in one of those creepy rituals they do up there. It was odd, but aside from hurting his throat a little, this was perfectly natural. Well, except for the certainty that any normal goblin would have been cursing a LOT more.

At the mention of Wagnard's priests, the goblin actually managed to look green; no mean feat when you're rust brown. Giving Chiffon the goblin equivalent of a sympathetic look (basically, he stopped scowling at her), he pulled a tall brown mare out of the ranks, carelessly plunking a saddle and cloth on its back. He paused. Hey, why would you need a horse? I thought the priests were supposed to join camp in half an hour anyway.

Alex answered with a blow the head from the flat of his newly commandeered sword. It was odd; now that he could talk to the little monsters, he didn't feel quite as inclined to just kill them. For good or for ill.

Sheathing the blade, he hoisted a startled Chiffon into the saddle. "If anyone asks, you're a spy going out on a routine scouting mission. And don't say anything; just try to glare at the men around you like they're cattle, because to a dark elf that's what they are."

"Something like this?" she asked, startling him. He'd gotten used to her soft alto voice; this was a husky purr. He turned to meet her gaze...

And involuntarily swallowed. You have to understand; pure-blood elves are rather androgynous; the men are often as 'pretty' as the females; likely one of the reasons that the Japanese like them so much is that whole bishonen thing. By a similar token, female elves aren't particularly...blatant, in a physical sense about their gender. Oh, it's just about impossible to mistake a female's figure for a man, but if you put just the faces side by side, it's likely you'd have trouble telling which was which.

Chiffon however was only a half-elf. And while face and figure were similar to Deeds, the human element had...shall we say, increased the development of certain areas. And the sultry glare on her face proved her to be a MUCH better actor than Alex would have thought.

Shaking the odd reactions off, Alex began leading the horse outside. "Oh, if anyone starts asking too many questions I'm going to smack them; that's what would be expected from a male dark elf."

"But you're not an elf." Thankfully she was using her normally shy voice; that other one kind of scared him.

"No, but I can pretend like I'm used to serving one."

Further conversation halted as they cleared the edge of the tent and started through camp. They drew quite a few odd looks, but apparently not too many people knew about prisoners. The only questions asked were by a pair of bored-looking guards at the camp entrance. Though the boredom quickly shifted into open leers at the sight of Chiffon.

"The lady Chiffon is being sent on a scouting patrol to the north; she's to investigate the situation in Alania," Alex began without preamble.

The first guard frowned. "I didn't hear anything about scouts from here. Besides, we just got back; shouldn't she have just stayed there?"

Alex smiled pleasantly. Releasing the lead rein, he slung a companionable arm over the guard's shoulder, much to his surprise. Leading him a bit closer to the other guard, he laughed quietly, leaning forward as if to whisper into the man's ear.

He then proceeded to wrench him into a headlock before flinging him into the other guard, a foot to the back-side helping the two to the ground. He didn't run though; he needed Chiffon to leave without pursuit. In other words, he still had a part to play. Stooping, he grabbed the first guard by the shirt and yanked him to eye-level. "Listen you miserable little latrine. What my Lady does is her concern and Ashram's. If you care to bring this up with him, go ahead, but don't waste our time...no, don't waste _her_ time." Flinging the man back down, he nodded to Chiffon, thankful that she hadn't slipped out of her role.

And froze.

Chiffon frowned uncertainly before she remembered, and turned the frown to pure displeasure. "Something worries you?"

Alex forced a dark smile onto his features. "I think it best if I give these idiots a better lesson on respecting the wishes of their superior officers. You go on ahead."

"...you will not be accompanying me?"

Alex winced inside. "My lady, time is of the essence. You really must leave as quickly as possible. The reports of movement along the western border of the Forest Of No Return are rather concerning." He grabbed the lead rein and began leading her through the gate. Checking to make sure they were out of range, he whispered as loudly as he dared, "go to where it meets the road into Valis; you'll find Wood. Tell him you were chasing a coyote; he'll believe you. Now go!"

She spared him a worried glance that managed to shatter her image as a PMS-ing dark elf queen rather completely, but quickly heeled her horse into a gallop.

Alex allowed himself to heave a sigh of relief as Chiffon disappeared into the undergrowth. Sighing, he turned back to enter the camp. "You can come out now."

The guards frowned at the statement. "Sir?"

Letting out a small laugh, he stooped to one of them and plucked a dagger from his belt. Cocking his arm, he launched it into a nearby tree. He couldn't hit a target the size of a man at this range (about twenty feet), but the point was made.

"I see. What gave me away?"

The guards started as a dark elf appeared, fading out of shadow. Alex shrugged. "A dead man could have heard you, as much noise as you were making." He grinned at the sudden anger in the elf's face. Mainly because he couldn't think of anything else to do with a trained swordsman bearing down on him.

"Enough."

The elf froze, rapier cocked for a thrust. Slowly, he lowered it as Ashram strode face-to-face with Alex.

The black knight peered upward, checking the progress of the sun. "Less than half a day and you were already plotting an escape."

Alex didn't answer; Ashram hadn't killed him once, but supposition based on a cartoon really wasn't the best thing to go on when you were in a life-or-death situation. Hmm...considering that that was exactly what he'd been doing, maybe he needed to rethink his strategy.

Ashram stared him in the eye; he had recognized Alex quickly enough from their brief view in Myce, and he was honestly a bit disappointed. He'd seen potential then, indomitable spirit. Now all he could see was fear and bravado. He needed to know more. Turning he began striding away. "Bring him."

Alex wondered idly if he'd won or lost that staring contest before the guards managed to beat the elf to clubbing him at the base of the skull.

A few miles away, Chiffon slowed her horse to a walk. Worry was currently gnawing away at her; she'd been saved for the second time, and was about to abandon what was literally the second decent human being she'd met. _There's nothing I can do_ she was quick to remind herself, but still...

Well...she did _need_ a protector. She hadn't been lying about that. And she didn't really care what he said about trusting that thief; she trusted Alex Latrans, and that was about it. But if they caught her again, he'd probably be furious with her.

Sighing, she nudged her horse back into a trot. She could try and stay ahead of the camp, but...well, she wasn't that good of a rider, was she? And riding was tiring; she couldn't do too much. If she was there if...well, when was more likely. If she was there when Alex escaped, she'd have her protector back. He didn't seem to mind her after all, and she could travel safely with him.

That was her rationalization, anyway.

* * *

"Again." 

Alex stared in a kind of painful fascination at the ground six inches from his face. _Blood. For the first time in my life, I've coughed up blood._ Wiping it away, he gingerly felt around inside his mouth with his tongue, trying to find the source. He really hoped that hadn't been due to a ruptured organ or something. He sighed in relief as he found the tear in his cheek; even better, he hadn't lost any teeth.

"Get up."

_Actually, this is rather comfortable ground. I think I'll just stay here for a few more hours. Or days. You know, as long as you let me._

"Pick him up."

A pair of goblins grabbed his arms, hoisting him back to his feet. Rumors about his command of their language had spread through the camp like wildfire; it had also been discovered he could speak kobold, ogre, and even elvish fluently. As such, they were holding him in a kind of uneasy awe; even the humans were a bit put out. Supposedly, human mouth parts weren't even physically equipped to reproduce goblin's speech.

Anyway, they were gentle...well, relatively speaking. They hoisted him up, held him until he was steady enough to support his own weight...

...and handed him the Marmo equivalent of a practice sword.

They didn't, it would seem, believe in wooden practice swords. The weapon in his hand was identical to a true broadsword save for two things; one, it was made from a much softer iron, and two, it didn't have sharp edges. Not terribly anyway; if you got the right leverage, angle, and force, you could give someone the equivalent of a bad paper cut, but that was about it.

The problem was, when it hit, it hit with enough power to break bones, let alone bruise.

Getting beaten everyday as a prisoner in an enemy war camp was something that wouldn't have surprised Alex. Getting beaten everyday as a prisoner in an enemy war camp through fencing and sparring lessons on the other hand...

Grimacing, he leveled the sword at Ashram. One lesson that had been beaten into him time after time was not to charge; you had to be good enough to check yourself and recover from a failure, and he...well, wasn't.

Ashram took the initiative. Charging, he swung viciously. Having learned the hard way that Ashram was a lot stronger than him, Alex ducked under the blow. Unfortunately, even after almost five days of these sparring matches (he was beginning to wonder if his image of Ashram was wrong, and the black knight really was a sadist) he still had trouble remembering that Ashram knew hand-and-foot fighting. Ducking put him perfectly in position for Ashram's spinning kick; this time he lost consciousness, thankfully ending the match for the day.

Ashram growled in disgust as he automatically sheathed the sword. He was beginning to wonder if he'd misjudged Alex, and the man he'd thought an opponent outside Myce was really just a particularly convincing blowhard. He'd held back enough to ensure that there would be no lasting injuries, but he was getting frustrated. Alex was absorbing bits and pieces of swordsmanship from their bouts, but Ashram hadn't seen that spark yet.

And it was pissing him off.

* * *

Alex regained consciousness while he was still being dragged away. Has Ashram ever gone out of his way to beat the ever-living shit out of anyone else like this? 

The goblins started, but answered readily enough. Nah. Most people he only has to beat the crap out of once.

Alex sighed. Frankly, he was getting tired of this. Five days, he'd been stuck in this camp. They weren't torturing him; well, not outside of making him try and fight Ashram. They were feeding him decently, they were allowing him to sleep in an environment where he had a relatively good chance of waking up alive. It was a learning experience, really; he was staying in Ashram's tent, listening as the commander of the army laid out his plans. It surprised him, really.

Because Ashram wasn't quite as tactically brilliant as Alex had originally thought. Oh, he knew a lot more, but there was the overwhelming sense that it was basic; he knew about envelopment, about flanking, about charges, the different uses of cavalry and infantry, but there was a decided lack of innovation. Alex had read the Art of War once, and one of the passages he remembered stated specifically that a good commander didn't use the basics over and over again, but innovated as much as possible, as much as necessary. Maybe not in big ways, but in the ways that mattered. Ashram's...no, Marmo's tactics were essentially to put a larger force across from a less vicious force and watch them kill face-to-face until one side was dead.

There were two points that Alex could have seen improvement on; hell, if HE could do it then Ashram should have. The first and biggest was archery. While goblins and kobolds sometimes used bows, they were just random individuals who'd feather a man who was out of sword-range. Massed archers or crossbow men firing volleys would have been a devastating weapon, but no one seemed to be willing to use it.

The main thing though was unit strength. Or rather, organization and the complete lack thereof. Most of the units were just roughly lumped together mobs of goblins, kobolds, and ogres; cavalry was all human, but that was just about it.

It shouldn't have been all that surprising, really; aside from the demonstrable and verified magic, this was essentially like Europe following the fall of the Roman Empire, though in this case it was the Sorcerer's Kingdom of Kastuul. There was a reason it had been called the dark ages. Tactics had been largely forgotten in favor of personal honor and brute force; it was material warfare, not intellectual. What would win was the force with numbers and more armored soldiers, not the ones clever enough to win.

Alex prayed that it would give him an advantage. Because he was just enough of a history nerd to know how ancient commanders had fought and won; there wouldn't be too many problems with applying the tactics they'd invented.

He hoped, anyway.

Or rather, he'd hoped that awhile ago. Now? The only thing on his mind right now was how utterly PISSED he was getting with these beatings. If not for the fact that he wanted Ashram alive at the end of the series, he would have seriously tried killing the damned knight by now. Would he have succeeded? Probably not.

Did he care?

The answer to that question scared him at times.

Still, he had a rudimentary plan for getting out of camp, but he had to wait until the right moment. The plain fact was that he wasn't tactically important; Ashram seemed to be keeping him around more as a pet than anything else. If he managed to get away, there would be pursuit, but he doubted it would be too terribly vehement; who cared if one person got away? (Though if he'd been thinking clearly through his haze of pain and lack of sleep, he would have considered the fact that denying the enemy the information he now had would be pretty important).

At least his abilities of recovery were improving; it was taking less and less time for him to get back to some kind of coherent state after each beating. Or maybe Ashram was just getting better at using the minimum necessary force.

He almost cried out in joy when he saw the same idiotic man with the scar across his nose that he'd so recently beaten into unconsciousness. He was stinking drunk at the moment, drunk enough to start bellowing obscenities at Alex.

For his part, Alex was starting to tune them out, when he noticed particularly angry whinnies coming from a small paddock. The second day he'd arrived, a small raiding party had brought back a dark gray horse with a white mane from within Kannon's personal stable. It had been intended as a gift for Ashram, but so far he hadn't done more than give it a cursory nod of approval. Well, that and mention that his current horse was superior.

Still, Alex had noticed that no one was guarding the horse, and that only the laziest and most half-hearted efforts were being made to train it for the saddle. More importantly however, there were hardly any guards stationed around it.

His plan wasn't really all that great. It relied heavily on the idiocy of his enemies, and he was beginning to respect the goblins a bit. Still, they _were_ pretty stupid. It came down to a simple choice; risk death now and maybe live, or sit around getting beaten on everyday until Ashram got bored. At which point everything on Lodoss would die anyway.

He frowned thoughtfully at the slurred bellowing of the soldier. Um...don't take this the wrong way, but are there any female goblins? Cause I've never seen one.

The goblins escorting him paused, glancing from one to the other. Not many. Maybe one female for every three males, and only a horde leader has access to them. Why?

Alex shrugged. Something that idiot said about how you're born.

The goblins scowled at each other. What now? You can only sit around getting badmouthed by obnoxious humans for so long, after all.

Alex shrugged again. Well, he's pretty drunk, so I didn't catch everything, but I'm pretty sure he said something about maggots, feces, and asses.

The goblins stared at each other. What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Alex inwardly seethed. Maybe they were a little too dumb for this to work. I think he's saying that goblins aren't born. He's saying that worms crawl out of your ass when you take a shit, and those grow up into goblins. Hmm. You could actually see their veins start throbbing in their foreheads. He grinned as the two charged, screaming and almost frothing at the mouth. _Must have hit a sensitive spot._ He turned to the rather disinterested horse handlers. "Anything you should do about that?"

They spared a glance, and snorted disdainfully. "That asshole? Who gives a shit?"

Alex winced. Well, that scrapped the original plan. Maybe counting on Marmo being altruistic to their fellow man had been stupid; he'd hoped they were racist enough to help a human on general principle. _Hmmm...that might work._ He sidled over. "You know, the drink is only going to keep him clumsy for so long. Those goblins are probably going to win."

The guards stared at him. "You crazy? He's a mean bastard; trust me, he's going to win."

Gotcha! "Twenty raiden says the goblins win."

The handlers stared at him. "You're on."

Grinning, Alex shook hands to seal the deal.

...And proceeded to charge the guard, grabbing him for the goblins to pound. You gonna let him talk like that?

Inarticulate howls of fury were their only answers. Alex actually felt sorry for the guy. Well, a little; it wasn't like the goblins were using anything worse than fists right now.

"HEY!"

Alex smirked. "I told you they'd win." He was rewarded as the handlers charged to try and haul the goblins to the side and beat them into unconsciousness. Turning, he spotted some goblins coming at a charge. Spinning the drunk guard, he shoved him at them. Taking a deep breath, he roared in a gruff voice the choicest insults he could think of in the goblin tongue. The fact that no one in the camp but him could speak goblin wasn't noticed; the insults managed to get the goblins pissed enough to join the brawl.

Ducking out of the way, he crawled through the ensuing melee towards the horse, wincing as kicks and stomps connected. _Thank god Goblins weigh less than humans._ He sighed in relief as he cleared the mess. Then frowned at the sight of the horse; if he didn't know better he would have sworn it was grinning. Deciding he'd simply been hit harder than he'd thought, he walked over. Checking one last time to make sure no one was watching, he leaned close enough for the horse to get his scent. "I don't know about you, but running the hell out of here seems like a good idea to me. You in?" The reins dropped from his fingers as the horse very deliberately nodded at him. Deciding not to question his luck (he refused to think about slang involving gift horses), he swung into the saddle.

Well before he could dig in his heels, the horse wheeled viciously and charged the fence at a dead run. Gasping as the jolting run aggravated bruises, he managed to cling to its neck long enough for its head-long charge to even out. He'd managed to clear the first checkpoint just as the alarm was raised. He cursed briefly the fact that he'd lost his axe (Ghim was most likely going to skin him alive when he found out); he'd need something if this turned into a fight. Spotting some kind of black spear leaning against a table in the sorcerer's camp, he leaned far enough out of the saddle to grab it.

In hindsight, he would freely admit that had been a bad idea.

* * *

In the myths of the Pueblo Indians, there are stories of a monster known as Achiyalabopa. This massive creature was a bird like an eagle, with feathers the color of rusting steel or copper. It was entirely possible that these feathers were metal, as they were described by all sources as being sharp as knives; it was something of a cross between the middle-eastern Roc and the Greek stymphalian birds. In most accounts of the story, a lone hunter tracked the bird (which preyed almost exclusively on humans) to its nest, and dug a hole underneath. Hiding there, he waited until the bird returned and shot it to death from within the cover of logs and brush that had served to protect the bird up until that point. This is a very abbreviated version of the myth, at least as it is told on most versions of Earth in the multi-verse. 

However, there was a tiny change in one version. And as we have seen, tiny changes can have a HUGE effect on the outcome of a story. In this version, the hunter didn't merely kill the bird, he burned the nest around it. However, one of the branches in the nest came from a tree known as _Santalum aes_; copper sandalwood. Considering that the tree didn't even exist in that dimension, this is something of a puzzle, but we won't think about that too hard. This tree was sacred to the warai kitsune, the nine-tailed coyote, because of its ability to feed on the spiritual essence of the world around it. However, as it burned, the wood almost...well, 'instinctively' reached out to find a way to survive the flames. It fed on the only thing available.

Namely, the soul of the not-quite-dead-yet Achiyalabopa.

You may ask why I bother to mention this story at all? There was something of an unforeseen effect from the combination of the sacred wood, the bird's spirit, and flame. Flesh gave way, but the almost copper-metal feathers simply melted and flowed. Bone straightened and hardened as the ash of the sandalwood flowed to regain a form with the power of the great bird's soul. And when the flames had died down, all that remained was a pile of ash, fragments of bone...

...and a spear. Eight feet long and black-hafted. A core of copper ran the length of the haft, copper that had flowed through the hollows of a bird's bone. The spearhead itself was all that remained of one of the bird's primaries; copper again, but stained black by the ash of the fire.

And still possessed by the bird's angry soul; angry, hungry, and just a little bit afraid.

And isn't it one of those unspoken rules about stories involving inter-dimensional travel? That other inter-dimensional flotsam should somehow drift into some context?

* * *

Touching the haft of the spear was an excruciating experience. Memories of dying through the bird's eyes, of being pierced again and again only to burn helplessly wracked Alex's body with phantom pain. If not for the fact that his jaw clenched under the agony, he would have screamed in agony. 

He was lucky, a little bit anyway. His entire body clenched under the assault of pain, tightly holding him to the horse's back. It also spurred the horse to greater speed; if Alex's conscious mind had been able to notice, he would have been shocked to realize that he was on a horse that was running at almost fifty miles an hour.

As it was, he was a bit preoccupied by pain.

The next half an hour or so of his life would forever remain a bit of a mystery; whatever he was doing to stay on horseback and keep at a gallop just around 65mph was purely subconscious. The conscious portion of his mind was stuck dealing with the relatively simple fact that he was hurting in places that he'd never known he had.

He was being hurt mentally.

He was being hurt physically.

But what nearly finished him...he was being hurt spiritually. He was in agony on a spiritual level as his mind and body flooded with sensations and information that perhaps two or three people in the history of the world were properly equipped to deal with.

He was safe...well, sort of anyway. For the moment, whatever was in the middle of tormenting him was content to simply rage and remember its own pain. After a while however, it decided it wanted more than memories. It wanted flesh.

Bodily control snapped back to the conscious mind as Alex realized that there was something that _wasn't_ him trying to take over.

You've no doubt noticed over the course of the past few chapters that Alex has a bit of a problem with rape. Namely, he has a problem with killing large numbers of people who he considers perpetrators when exposed to the fact or its aftermath. He really didn't know why.

The main reason was freedom. He'd once heard that saying 'everyone should have the right to make their own choices, provided that doesn't deny someone else's choice' was a paradox. It was an impossible way to live. This is erroneous. It is entirely possible to live this way, provided that you choose not to do things that would deny others. Which is easier than you might think.

This belief, this way of life had evolved Alex psychologically, causing an almost irrational...okay, a completely irrational reverence for freedom and choice. This was simply a powerful, constantly active part of his psyche. This had translated for him into a fierce detestation of acts of rape (though repressed anger played a large part in the whole murdering part of his reaction). He also detested acts of enslavement, or attempts at indoctrination and brainwashing.

Both consciously and subconsciously, he felt that Achiyalabopa's attempts at taking his body qualified.

The bird's soul which had sealed itself in the black spear, had possessed a forty-foot wingspan. He preyed on humans not because he was evil, but because they were the most plentiful and easiest to kill prey animal. He was used to killing very large numbers of creatures casually, without remorse. It was a bloodthirsty monster, and it was currently trying to understand the new emotion it felt. Ah yes. Terror.

Terror of a gangly, hairless ground monkey. One that was performing the spiritual equivalent of kicking someone in the nuts after beating them to the ground.

Very quietly, and with greater meekness than any Pueblo would have imagined possible, Achiyalabopa, the great spear bird, surrendered.

At which point Alex's battered Self lapsed into complete unconsciousness.

* * *

"Are you alright?" 

Alex whimpered quietly as he woke up. "...please not so loud." He frowned. "...Chiffon?"

The half-elf carefully replaced the cloth on his forehead. "What happened to you? You look like you've been trampled under a herd of oxen."

Alex grimaced. The head-ache was fading quickly; thank god for small gifts. "What are you doing here? I thought I told you to run."

Chiffon was silent for a long time. Finally, as she gently slid his head off her lap, she answered. "I've been waiting for you to escape. I...I wanted to make sure that you got out alright." Not the entire truth by any means, but it would do. She winced silently; for all that her back was to Alex, she could feel his disapproval. She tried, really. She didn't like disobeying, but sometimes -

"Thank you."

She flushed suddenly. "What?"

Alex grimaced, but didn't comment on the shout. "Don't get me wrong; you had no business staying anywhere near the Marmo camp." He sighed as she visibly wilted, what little happiness had been on her face fading. _God damn it, what kind of life made someone so emotionally fragile?_ He'd have to be very gentle with her, all while carefully bringing her tolerance up. "It took a lot of courage to do that though. Thanks for caring."

Chiffon flushed again, but he'd already closed his eyes. She was grateful for that. "Um...are you still going to try and leave Kannon?"

Alex managed a slight nod. "The war's over here, more or less. I need to reach Valis soon, but not yet." He sighed. "I just hope that Beld isn't being a monster."

"You mean you didn't hear?" Surprise was evident in her tone. "Raiding groups have been harassing the Marmo for days now; every village I've passed has either had a group of archers that go sniping at the troops every night, or has sent a group north to fight alongside King Fahn."

Alex turned to stare at her, and instantly regretted it. He wasn't going to die, but he still hurt all over. Though it was mostly the physical hurt now. He was too weak to really offer any protests as Chiffon rushed to his side, pillowing his head on her lap. Any desire or enjoyment of being cared for by a beautiful woman being of course, purely coincidental. "How long was I unconscious?"

"I don't know; that horse brought you here less than an hour ago."

He turned his head, slowly this time to look at the nonchalantly grazing animal. "Thanks." He chuckled weakly as the horse nodded curtly to him. _Wonder if it's magical..._

"I should have known better."

Chiffon's eyes widened at the deep, vicious voice. For his part, Alex just groaned.

Ashram slowly, regally got down from his horse. "I kept thinking you were a fool, but you're smarter than I gave you credit for. Less than a week, and you managed to plot your own escape. Perhaps I should have beaten you harder."

Groaning gave way to a startling flash of rage. Alex hadn't forgotten their 'sparring.' Grimacing around the pounding headache currently lancing through his skull, he used the black spear to lever himself to his feet.

That was odd. I didn't even realize I was still holding it.

Ashram simply smiled. No, smile is too mild a word. Ashram simply _smirked_. His opponent was at least halfway dead; the defiance was refreshing, but too late. Wordlessly, he drew his sword.

Achiyalabopa (who from this point on shall be known simply as Achiya) would have frowned if it still had jaw parts. He recognized the coming battle, and knew that quite frankly, his current wielder didn't stand a chance in hell. It would have helped if he knew how to use the spear; while not magical in that he could unleash fireballs or cleave mountains, there was a subtle bit of magic to the Black Spear. Achiya had spent the past hour leafing through Alex's memories; he could not and would not attempt to subvert the body to his own purposes again, not after the reaction he'd gotten last time. Still, he could look.

It was odd; there were all kinds of images half-stored away regarding fights. Some looked like pictures of real people fighting, others he couldn't understand; moving drawings, or frescoes maybe? Unimportant; what was important was the fact that quite a few of them involved men fighting with either spears or staffs of some kind; they could be easily modified to mesh together. Pulling the strings that kept the information buried under layers of 'nothing important here,' the spirit proceeded to dump every byte of data concerning spear and staff fighting it could into Alex's conscious mind.

Alex used to be a relatively normal boy; granted he was an otaku, but that doesn't really change all that much. Circumstances had changed him though; along with the gift of tongues, his subconscious and autonomic brain functions had begun to develop along independent lines. Simply seeing how another person can fight isn't enough to show you how, after all.

Recognizing however that death was most likely going to occur in the next four or five seconds, the subconscious blasted a message to the autonomic brain's nerve-control functions. Rebuilding his muscles to condition them for interpreting the newly learned combat techniques would have been impossible.

It was also unnecessary.

Most of the reasons why we aren't all strongmen and contortionists has nothing to do with our muscular limitations; muscle fibers don't really get all that much looser or tighter. What changes is the degree to which they are kept flexed; a tight muscle is simply one that has learned through repetition of exercise that it is desirable to keep it tight. If you can bypass the inhibitors of normal brain chemistry, you can effectively triple your strength while gaining the flexibility of a yoga master. That's where the stories of desperate mothers heaving cars off of children come from; their brains simply forget that they can't do that.

And really, how hard is it to switch a neuron?

That's not to say it was a pleasant experience.

Chiffon gasped as Alex collapsed to one knee, bellowing in pain. Mainly because she could quite clearly see the muscles in his body writhing independent of each other; it looked like something was trying to crawl out of his skin. Then, as abruptly as it had started, it was done.

Ashram frowned at the sight of his downed opponent. He'd stopped screaming, but he'd also stopped moving completely; he just sort of...sat there. Firming his grip on his sword, he prepared to charge. He'd heard enough from the few guerillas they'd captured to know that Alex had at least something to do with all the insurrectionists. Killing him now would be...acceptable. It would be more effective to capture him and publicly execute him, but it would more likely create a martyr. A legend could be debunked; a memory of a fallen hero was far stronger.

Then Alex raised his head.

Gone were normally placid brown eyes. In there places were pools of molten gold. No iris or pupil marred them; they were simply pools of gold.

Alex's abrupt charge was unexpected. Still, Ashram blocked the blow easily, growling as he prepared to chop him in the back of the neck. "I thought you'd learned not to CHARGE!"

Alex calmly whipped his arm around, yanking the spear haft between him and Ashram. Settling his grasp in the middle of the haft, his hands equal lengths from each other, he parried blow after blow. He was still battered, still weak, but he was holding his own, if only briefly. He grinned as Ashram used a downward slash to sheath his sword, snapping it out in the next instant in a vertical slash. Dodging the kill stroke, he spun quickly and extended the spear, knocking Ashram's right foot out from under him. His follow up thrust with the butt of the spear, took Ashram full in the face, just shy of cracking the cheekbone.

Ashram stumbled backwards as Alex coolly brought the spear between the two of them. He simply stood there. Frowning, Ashram rose to his feet. The desire to attack, to finish the duel was strong, but this was the wrong time. Alex had surprised him, but he hadn't beaten him. If left unchecked, he would cause a great deal of trouble; he was already becoming a minor myth in Alania.

That suited Ashram perfectly. He wanted Alex to have a long way to fall. Smiling, he absently rubbed his cheek as he sheathed sword and climbed into the saddle. _Interesting. His eyes are changing again; they tell his spirit. Useful._ He noticed the half-elf staring at him in fear, and couldn't help himself. He laughed openly as he turned his horse and spurred it into a gallop south.

The Emperor had King Fahn. It was about time Ashram gained a proper foe of his own.

Chiffon tentatively approached. She felt her heart thump as she noticed the golden color of Alex's eyes for the first time; there was a terrible, cold fire in them. She swallowed nervously as the gold faded and both white and pupil returned. His iris took longer to fade...no, it wasn't fading. Where it had once been brown, it was no the color of fresh blood. She drew away from him as he started forward.

Alex winced slightly at Chiffon. I keep frightening her. I either frighten or hurt her every other time we meet. Sighing, he let the spear drop. "Sorry about that."

Chiffon wasn't reassured. Though at least his eyes were returning to their brown color.

She felt something in her whimper as he collapsed again, unconscious (he seems to do a lot of that, doesn't he?) He'd hurt himself again fighting Ashram. Though he'd already been pretty badly hurt to begin with.

Her smile was an old, practiced one. The smile she wore every time someone asked what was the matter. The smile she wore every time her mother had screamed at her for not being human. Kneeling beside him, she gently rolled him over, pillowing his head in her lap.

He fought for her. He suffered for her. He frightened her. He cared for her...

Without ever losing her smile, she began to very gently, very quietly sob.

He was all she had.

* * *

The journey from Shining Hill to Roid, the capitol of Valis, would have taken roughly three weeks on foot. Over the five days Alex had spent in the Marmo camp, they'd managed to cover about sixty miles; three days journey gone. If you'd tried to make the trip by horseback, you might be able to make it in just under ten days. 

Alex and Chiffon had managed it in less than four.

The horse (Chiffon's brown gelding had been abandoned, and as for the gray stallion, Alex hadn't gotten around to naming it) was possibly the fastest animal that Alex had ever seen, or heard of. In an all-out sprint, he'd estimated that they had reached just over fifty miles an hour; a hell of a lot faster than he thought horses could run. What was more, it seemed to have unlimited endurance; he could trot roughly twenty miles an hour for days on end, assuming he got some decent food and rest. He lacked the mass and muscle to have been a good warhorse; he was tall but lightly muscled, and was NOT equipped for galloping at top speed in charges with eighty pounds of armor on. Still, he was a magnificent, valuable creature.

So why had so little effort been made to tame this horse? Why was it so lightly guarded?

It was perhaps the most vicious, disobedient, and just plain MEAN horse that had ever been born. While it had been willing to carry Alex on their charge out of the camp, getting into the saddle every morning usually entailed an hour long game of 'bucking bronco,' as the mean-spirited beast did its best to fling Alex off its back.

He succeeded with depressing regularity.

Still, Alex was getting better at staying on his back, and he was also getting better at falling off without seriously hurting himself (he was fairly sure he'd cracked a rib somewhere along the line). After that though, it finally calmed down enough for the day to let Alex stay on.

Still, he spent at least an hour of the day wishing for a better behaved horse. Though at least it didn't try and throw Chiffon.

She was...a trial, to say the least. Spending eight hours a day with her back pressed into his chest wasn't an uncomfortable experience...well, not precisely. The maddening thing was her uncanny ability to make any silence wildly uncomfortable. Which had forced a not particularly talkative young half-Korean from another dimension to make conversation.

Alex was more than ready to reach Roid.

Unfortunately, he'd chosen to detour north, skirting the edges of the Forest of No Return. He'd worked out rough calculations of travel time in his head, and figured that it was unlikely that Deed and the others had managed to go from Myce to Alan to Roid in under two weeks, though just barely. If he didn't find them within the next day or two, he'd turn west for Valis.

He might have despised the thought of being the hero, but in this case he felt he'd earned a little bit of luxury after the hell he'd gone through in the last week.

Chiffon absently watched the scenery roll by, leaning against Alex's chest. She'd been frankly amazed at how quickly he was healing; considering how battered he'd been when they'd met, she had been expecting him to be weeks from full strength. What was more, he was healing this fast even with his daily 'duels' with Horse (he'd specifically asked her not to name him).

She sighed as she felt one of his hands slide over her stomach to steady her. Three days of this odd contact had finally started to wear down her fear of being touched; she was still a bit nervous every time he did it, but that was passing with greater and greater speed. (She privately thought the only reason he hadn't tried to take advantage of her was that he was too injured to do so).

The last three days had been a balm for her. Bit by bit, she'd managed to find topics that he enjoyed talking about. He was at least as awkward as her; it was painfully obvious when he was talking just to try and comfort her. It was kind of sweet really.

Thankfully, his eyes had shown no sign of color change. They were ahead of both the Marmo army's main forces and its scouts, and had managed to avoid getting in any fights. She was starting to lose her fear of him.

Then the explosions began.

Alex winced. _And Karla's attack begins, right on schedule._ "Hang on tight." He waited until he felt Chiffon lean back into him before wrapping an arm more securely around her stomach. "HYAA!"

The horse whickered reproachfully, but grudgingly broke into a gallop, following the trail of smoke plumes blossoming through the forest.

It didn't take them long to find evidence of the fight; mini-craters pock-marked the ground around them. What was surprising was that they weren't alone.

"Are you allies of the witch?"

Alex shook his head at Parn. "Not exactly."

"...Alex?"

He grinned at the thunderstruck mage. "Good to see you too Slayn." He frowned as a whistling reached his ears. "Incoming."

Slayn stared as the fireball rushed towards them. He spared a glance for Alex; the lanky archer was already pulling out of the blast radius. Parn on the other hand had pulled his horse to a stop. Wincing, Slayn hurriedly began chanting his shield spell.

Alex's eyes narrowed as he wove around the paths of incoming fireballs; he was gaining quickly on the fleeing coach.

From within, Karla smiled at Fiana. "I must commend you and the others on escaping me. (4) I underestimated you; I apologize for that. Still, I'm afraid I can't allow news of my...influence to spread just yet." She paused, frowning as her mystic senses finally noticed just how quickly she was going to be overtaken.

Chiffon gasped as a line of six fireballs hurtled towards them. They were too close together to dodge, and even she could see that they'd be there faster than they could run. "What are we..." her voice trailed off. She'd turned to look at Alex, and was in the midst of regretting it. His eyes weren't gold yet, but they were maroon, darkening rapidly into blood red.

Alex grinned ferally as Achiya scented blood. Metaphorically speaking, anyway. The fireballs had been launched flat; they were dipping as they flew. He estimated they'd strike his horse in the chest. "Hang on tight. And brace yourself."

Chiffon's question never came up as Alex slapped the horse on the rump; more out of surprise than pain, it leapt into a full gallop, straight at the oncoming fireball. Most horses would have been terrified of fire; this one just flat didn't care. Going too fast to either dodge the fireball or pull to a stop, it settled for the only option left to it.

He gathered his feet under him, and hurdled it just as Alex viciously sawed on the reins, dragging him to the side.

The fireball hit the ground about fifteen feet behind them, exploding. The horse whinnied indignantly as the shockwave crashed into them. Gritting his teeth, Alex forced himself to lean into the blast; they had to ride out the force of the blast, using the shockwave to keep them on their feet.

Horse grunted audibly as his hooves caught the forest turf, but managed to keep his feet without injuring himself. Alex didn't waste any time as he pulled his head back in the direction Karla was fleeing.

Horse was just plain pissed at this point (5). Not even bothering to wait for a signal to do so, he straightened out and took off after the fleeing carriage.

Karla frowned from within. She did NOT like being cut off in mid-sentence when she was gloating. Still, she was about to be overtaken, and that would not be pleasant. She paused in thought for a moment, ignoring the worried look on the princess's face. She recognized the face of the man chasing them, but there were new overtones; spiritual and magical both. She smiled. _Perhaps my first idea with him was the correct one. Still, it wouldn't do to let him win too easily._

Alex growled under his breath as a new fireball shot towards them. He didn't have to steer the Horse around obstacles anymore; he swerved easily out of the way of the fireball.

That was the plan, anyway. Unfortunately, Karla had taken the time and effort to make this one SMART enough to follow their swerves. Gritting his teeth, Alex managed to get the horse (he _really_ had to pick a name for it sooner or later) to bring its neck flat. "Get down, Chiffon. Lie as flat as you can. And pray this works."

Slayn stared. Parn stared. The horse they were currently sharing was just grateful that he'd been allowed to slow to a halt. The bronze-clad mercenary was the first to ask the obvious question. "How in the hell did he do that?"

Slayn swallowed nervously. "Which part? The part where he leaped his horse over an explosive spell and rode the shockwave?"

"No, the part where he just used a spear to knock a fireball out of the way."

Alex winced as he drew back the spear into a more comfortable position. _That doesn't hurt enough to be dislocated, so I must just have sprained something._ He'd originally hoped to knock the fireball into the air, where (hopefully) it would detonate harmlessly. Why he thought it wouldn't just burst on contact with the spear is another question entirely. He'd found though that he couldn't get the right leverage to swing upward, and had settled for swatting it to the side.

It had worked...sort of. They didn't get hit and blown to bits, so it was a success. Of course, Alex only managed to knock it off course enough that when it hit, it blew a massive cloud of woodchips and dust around them.

Alex let the horse pull to a stop as he furiously blinked dust and grime out of his eyes. When it cleared, he found an immobile carriage. Karla and Fiana were standing on a slight rocky outcropping.

Well, Karla was standing. Fiana was kind of lying there in a faint.

"Stay here," Alex curtly told Chiffon. If it had been Deed, he wouldn't have bothered; she'd just bite his head off for trying to order her around. With Chiffon, he stood at least a reasonable chance of her obeying his orders.

"I'm not leaving you."

In theory, anyway.

Not bothering to reprimand her, he simply guided her behind him as he leveled his spear at Karla. "Let her go."

Right on script, she responded with some kind of pressure field that hit hard and fast enough to drop him to his knees.

Grunting under the strain, he forced himself to his feet. Chiffon's sudden yelp of pain as she struck the ground and the similarities between the sound and what he'd heard rescuing her had nothing to do with the sudden strength. Nor did it have anything to do with his eyes finally darkening to full gold. "I said to let her go."

Slayn stared as Alex and Karla conducted a face off. He thrust his staff in front of Parn. "Wait! Let Alex deal with this?"

Parn glared at him, but didn't try to get through. "You know him?"

Breathing with exaggerated care, Alex carefully grounded the butt of his spear. He wanted to at least appear to be arguing from a point of strength. "Why are you keeping her? You've already accomplished what you want; Fahn will throw everything he has at Beld and Marmo. Besides," he added, improvising, "keeping her might make him cautious. Then _one side_ might win, and lord only knows how badly the balance will shift."

_Karla's eyes widened in shock. He knows...how can he know my plans?_ So shocked was she that she didn't even realize that they were no longer alone. Though when a relatively weak water elemental broke over her shield, she deigned to look over her 'opponents.' _Hmm...the dwarf looks like he's on the verge of apoplexy._ Bringer herself back under control, she carefully levitated Fiana, wafting her into Alex's arms as she cancelled the gravity spell. "Boy...no. Young man then, I award you the princess for your bravery." Smiling, she laughed as she vanished, plans of elevating Alex after he'd distinguished himself in the war feeding nicely into plans of crushing him.

Alex sighed in relief as he managed to control his collapse to one knee. _Damn, that crushing spell hurts._ Well, he was reunited with his 'posse,' so hopefully things would work out. He hoped Wood had gotten the royal family out of Kannon safely.

"Alex!"

He sighed in relief as he noticed the others coming towards him. Deed, Etoh...Ghim was still standing in shock from his first meeting with Leylia's abductor...yep, Shiris and Orson were here too. Slayn and Parn had already shown up...that made everyone.

"Alex...what happened to you?"

"Alex!"

Chiffon had taken a bit longer to get up after the spell ended. The first thing she'd noticed was another woman in Alex's arms, but she'd managed to see enough to know it was another rescue. (He seems to do a lot of that, doesn't he?) She'd turned towards the other voices...

...and seen Deed.

She'd been in the middle of getting up when she saw just how much concern was on the high elf's face.

At which point she had 'accidentally' collapsed in a weakened state. Right into Alex's arms.

"...WHO is this?"

Alex winced. Slightly. Hell, that spell had done him in, why not Chiffon? Still, he had a feeling that the second the words 'it's not what it looks like' left his mouth Deed would lay into him. Playing the dumb, blind male seemed a good choice. "Her name is Chiffon. We met in Kannon; I've been escorting her out of the war zone." Oh dear. Judging from the way Deed was twitching even faster, that might have been a bad choice of words.

Then a chorus of feminine screams erupted from nearby. Alex couldn't decide to bless or curse.

He settled for gently setting Chiffon in a sitting position and handing Fiana back to Etoh (supposedly, they got married after the series; no harm in helping that along). "It never ends, does it?" Levering himself to his feet with the spear, he managed to jog over to his horse. "Come on, we've got someone else to try and beat up."

The horse responded by trying to bite him.

Alex just flicked him in the ear. "I don't have time for that now. Be cooperative for once in your life; surely THAT isn't too much to ask?"

It whickered at him derisively.

"Hey! Keep my mother out of this; I've never claimed you were a mule or something, have I? You're not careful, and I'll name you Blucher."

He reared and neighed obligingly.

"...I'm not going to ask how you know that joke. Maybe Crow's Bait? Dog Meat? 'Gonna be Glue?'"

Sweat-dropping is that odd occurrence in comedic anime that indicates stress or a degree of confusion. To the best of my knowledge, it had never once happened in Lodoss.

That precedent was being shattered as Alex continued arguing with his horse, acting as though they were having an actual conversation with back-and-forth dialogue.

Parn broke the silence. "Is that guy crazy or something?"

Slayn shook his head. "He wasn't when we last saw him."

"He spent five days as a prisoner in a Marmo war camp," Chiffon said quietly. "He'd have every right to madness." She sighed as they ran off; some on horseback and some on foot. Rising to her feet, she prepared to follow them.

"I think that you and I need to have a talk."

She blink-blinked as Deed interposed herself between Alex and Chiffon. Then glared a bit. "I'm not going to let Alex go get himself almost killed again."

_How DARE he do that around someone else!_ "He'll be fine with me. Now then, you have some explaining to do..."

* * *

Alex was at the moment torn between laughing and staring. 

"Shut your hole! It's not that funny..."

Alex wiped at his eyes. "No, but it IS that good to see you again Wood; I'd started to worry that you hadn't managed to get out of the war zone in time."

As it had turned out, the screaming had started when Wood's group had stumbled across (or been stumbled across by) a small contingent of Alanians who looked like they were...well, who looked like they were pretending to be soldiers, or something. He wasn't really sure what had happened after that; everyone kept arguing different stories that put it as someone else's fault.

So Alex settled for laughing at them indiscriminately. Damn, it felt good to smile again!

"What's going on...Alex!"

He turned, grinning at the tall, bluff, blonde man. "Jebra! Good to see you. What news?"

Jebra smiled. "We've been recruiting in every town we've passed through; hundreds have come to follow the Banner of the Coyote."

Alex's smile suddenly felt pasted on. "...I'm sorry, what was that?"

Etoh coughed nervously. "Um...well, the Captain said he needed a banner for his men, so...I made one."

Alex managed to keep his smile on, but it was no easy thing. "...May I see this banner?"

Jebra laughed. "You'll see it when the men join us. Almost four hundred foot and at least a hundred horsemen to boot. They may not know how to fight on horseback, but they'll learn quickly enough. I was hoping you had some ideas for training the foot though."

Alex groaned.

Jebra frowned as he finally noticed the horse under Alex. "Where did you get that horse?"

"...Hmmm? Oh, I stole it from Marmo."

Jebra dismounted, cautiously approaching. After almost a minute of pacing around the animal, he tentatively extended a hand to stroke the curve of the neck.

He quickly snatched his hand back as the horse almost absently snapped at his fingers. "I thought so; where on earth did you manage to find a Lusitano?"

Alex frowned. "What?"

Jebra shook his head in wonder. "I'd thought they were only rumors; supposedly, Lusitanos are the fastest, hardest running horses in the world. Not particularly strong, but they're said to be as vicious as serpents in a fight."

Alex snorted. "Yes, I'd call him vicious."

"What's his name?"

Alex shrugged. "I haven't given him one yet; most of the stuff I want to call him isn't the sort of thing that you'd let just anyone hear."

"What kind of name would be fitting for Alexander the Great's horse?" one of the foot soldiers called.

Alex frowned. How the hell...oh yeah, I mentioned that name back in Fortress Myce. Then his frown deepened. Jebra was looking...embarrassed. Embarrassed and evasive. "Something I need to know?"

Wood just grinned. "Answer him; 'what would Alexander the Great name his horse?'"

Alex sighed. "...Bucephalus. Alexander the Great rode a black stallion that he'd tamed himself, one that he'd named Bucephalus." He paused, then slowly grinned. "If I remember the story right, they'd planned to kill the horse because it was unmanageable; Alexander was the only one crazy and stubborn enough to actually try and tame the damn thing. Yeah, that works." He frowned at the sudden cheers. "Uh, would someone mind telling me what's going on?"

Jebra coughed into his fist. "Well...remember how I asked about Alexander the Great when you were healing in fortress Myce? You mentioned that the strength of his forces was a combination of massed spearmen supported by cavalry. Something like what _you_ did, if you remember."

Alex nodded slowly. He wasn't sure why, but he was getting a bad feeling. "Yeah, it was based largely on what Alexander the Great would have done."

Wood could contain himself no longer; he'd heard the rumors. "They think that YOU'RE Alexander the Great. That you're a forgotten or escaped King or something; the rumors vary. They say that you talk about yourself in the third person so no one will realize just how important you are, but that's really your title."

"...WHAT?"

Wood couldn't contain himself anymore; he literally fell from his horse, he was laughing so hard. Alex couldn't decide who to glare at; Jebra, Wood, or the soldiers in general. Damnit, it wasn't his fault he kept doing heroic things!

Then he paused, as he noticed (while trying to find the person he most wanted to start cussing out) who was missing. "Hey, what happened to Deed and Chiffon?"

To be continued...

(1) - This is actually a fairly accurate statistic.

(2) - This is also a fairly accurate description of the practice.

(3) - Chiffon is a half-elf character from a series called Meiking; not for children, and I won't say another word.

(4) - This scene is something of a composite, based partially on what happened in the manga and partially on the OVA.

Author's Notes: Whew! This chapter took a lot longer to write than I'd expected. But then, I didn't really expect to end up setting out almost thirty five pages, and this was AFTER I decided to defer a scene until later. When I was reading this over, it seemed that I was writing a much darker fic than I usually do. I don't really consider it a darkfic, but most of what I've written in the past was kind of irreverent comedy. I think I'll try to bring some of that back in later chapters.

In regards to the architecture and obstacles present in breaching the castle, I'm making most of that up; the only city in Record of the Lodoss War that they pay any real attention to is Roid, in Valis. There's only one picture of Kannon in the entire series, and it is NOTHING like what I've just described. I'm going by Wood's statement that Kannon is more reliable than Alania, and basing the designs on that. Well, that and dramatic license. This IS an Alternate Universe after all.

In hindsight, this seems kind of a cross between Mat's attack on the Stone of Tear in the Wheel of Time, and Lupin's breaking and entering in the Castle of Cagliostro. Arsene Lupin III and Mat Cauthon...I kind of like that combination.

Sorry about some of the longwinded expository dialogue. I enjoyed writing it; I hope you enjoy reading it.


	5. Chapter 4: Love and War

Disclaimer: If it hasn't sunk in over the last four chapters that I do NOT own Record of the Lodoss War or any of the characters created therein (with the exception of 'Alex Latrans'), then you obviously know nothing about fanfiction or this series, and have no business reading this anyway. So please be a darling and hit ALT + F4.

_**Chronicles of Murphy Book One**_

_**Book of the Accursed**_

_**Chapter Four**_

Love and War

Somewhere to the northwest, King Kashue Arnague the first of Flaim had departed from his capitol city and was riding to Valis ahead of his main army. Beld was at the moment furious at the fact that while plenty of loot was being collected and razings were occurring, there were barely any casualties in the war in Kannon; most of the villages they found were abandoned, and even the largest cities were more often than not booby-trapped. The fact that most of the remaining people in Kannon had taken to hiding in the western mountains, using their superior knowledge of the terrain to conduct what would be considered by modern war historians to be guerilla tactics did nothing to improve his mood.

In the northwest, King Kadamos of Alania had finally been clued in to the fact that many of his southern and western citizens (not most, but a large number) were preparing to go to war with Marmo, something he had implicitly wanted to avoid. In fairness, it wasn't that he hoped to gain power after Marmo won (if they won at all), but rather he hoped to keep his people from dying in large quantities. Though if he ever found out who the hell this 'Coyote' was, he was most likely going to order him garroted.

In the southwest, Prince Jester had begun marshalling his forces. Because of all the mountains, horse cavalry and foot soldiers wouldn't be coming, though it was generally agreed that highly trained dragon-riding knights were preferable to untrained recruits, regardless of how many there were. To the north, in Tarba, Neese had received messengers from King Fahn requesting her assistance. Between her worries about Ghim and Leylia, and her remembered friendship with Beld, she had categorically refused to join the fight. Some of her priests and priestesses were packing and heading southwest to try and keep villagers alive through the burnings and battles, but she had forbidden them to fight. Though further southwest, the paladins serving Pharis were under no such compunctions, and were hastening to give aid to Valis and Fahn.

And finally, in central Lodoss, a rather odd procession was making its way through the gates of Roid.

* * *

Parn felt like his face was going to burst from smiling too hard. The son of the disgraced Knight Tessius, and he was being greeted as a national hero for his part in rescuing Princess Fiana of Valis. He had come to the conclusion that good things really did happen to good people.

Shiris smiled at him from his side. She wasn't all that much older than him really, but she had quite a bit more experience under her belt, and knew that the adulation would pass. It always did for mercenaries; if he quit the work and became a knight again he might be able to hold onto this moment of glory, but she didn't see that happening. He had way too much hatred for what the knighthood had done to his father and family.

She smirked as lily petals rained from open windows. Not that she was complaining.

Her gaze slipped past Parn to the so-called Coyote (she'd heard him mention several times that he had a real name, and it sure as hell wasn't coyote), but the men who were following him used the title almost religiously. As it was, he glared at them whenever they used it, but he'd stopped trying to get them to shut up.

She forced herself not to giggle as her gaze fell upon the point-ears of the group; Deedlit the high elf and Chiffon the half-elf. Deed's normally open cloak had been drawn tightly around her almost like some kind of robe or gown; it lent a wonderful air of mystery that had nothing to do with her reasons for that particular fashion choice. Chiffon was similarly draped in Slayn's cloak; he'd mentioned at one point that the girl had tremendous magical potential, and was currently pressuring her to learn something of it. He'd offered to tutor her personally once the war was over, though Shiris privately had her doubts.

Alex though...he was a bit of an enigma. Some of the stories she was hearing had been laughable; she flat-out refused to believe the one that was circulating about him thrashing Ashram, and the Black Knight only escaping because he threw a dozen ogres in his path. When shaggy-hair had heard that story, he'd personally dragged the storyteller away and half-drowned him in a convenient horse trough. She'd heard some of the rumors about Ashram, and even allowing for the way things got blown out of proportion, she thought she had a good idea of how good the black knight really was.

She'd managed to drag the real story of the battle of Myce out of him, and was a bit surprised when his grudging account synched up with some of the more sedate rumors from the soldiers. Oddly enough, it was people calling him "the Great" that made him angriest. When she'd jokingly used the appellation, he'd snapped and roared at her, "Alexander the Great was a short, blond-haired hothead who thought he was the child of a god; he also happened to die somewhere around 2200 years before I was born. NOW STOP CALLING ME THAT!"

She still wasn't sure why he got so angry about that, though likely the situation they'd found Deedlit and Chiffon in hadn't helped.

Alex forced himself not to react as Chiffon approached. She'd been trying to alternately explain and apologize for the past week (Fiana had insisted that she travel with their burgeoning army, and marching that many people was taking time). He sighed as she nervously cleared her throat.

"Um...about the other day..."

"So how is the training going?"

Keeping from groaning this time proved impossible as Deed popped up. He wasn't sure why, but she and Chiffon had been at each other's throats from almost the moment they met.

Literally.

He shook his head. The part of him that was simply a male animal had been...appreciative of the fact that two beautiful women had been rolling around in a not-all-that-covered state. He just would have preferred it didn't involve bruises and hair-pulling.

(Flashback)

_Alex hadn't been all that sure what to think when he noticed a group of the Alanian recruits cheering; he'd assumed that some kind of brawl had broken out. _

_Then he'd noticed the look of absolute glee on Wood's face._

_Then he'd noticed that Miranda and Else looked scandalized while Ariel and Fiana (who'd regained consciousness at this point) were both blushing bright red with embarrassment._

_And last of all, he'd noticed Larth, passed out with a nosebleed._

_Granted, Record of the Lodoss War was a pretty serious show, but it was still anime. Still, his first assumption had been that an errant elbow in the press of men watching and egging on whoever was in the middle had just cracked him in the face._

_Still, he'd decided to take a look._

_He'd expected a fight, and there it was._

_He just hadn't expected it to be one involving Deed and Chiffon, rolling around with torn clothing. Oh, and on a side-note, women on Lodoss apparently don't wear bras. (1)_

_He really should have broken them up. One part of him was glad that Chiffon was finally showing a little bit of spunk, but another part was worried they were going to hurt each other._

_Mostly though, he was just standing there, gaping in...well, he was a twenty-year old American male. I'm pretty sure you can guess what was going through his head at that particular moment._

_Still, he managed to return the blood to his head and attempt to stop the match. Though by that time, just about everyone knew...about five hundred people or so._

(End Flashback)

"I said, how was training?"

He shrugged; if she didn't want to bring it up, he'd keep as far away from that topic as he could. "Not too bad; I'm still surprised that Karl managed a recruiting drive of his own." When he'd left Myce, he'd ridden straight back towards Zaxom, and informed the villagers there what their 'hero' had been up to. He then proceeded to mention that war was breaking out, and that he was going to fight. He wasn't telling everything; Alex was sure of that. Still, when he left Zaxom to head west, he'd brought almost a dozen of the hotter-headed youths with him. Traveling west and south, he'd stopped and told the stories in every village he ran across, told it to every hunter or shepherd he could find. And more and more people came; by the time he'd joined up with them, he had mustered over 160 men; almost sixty on horseback and the rest either archers or farmers (mostly).

"What about the other forces? I'm surprised that Jebra is giving you any authority at all."

Alex laughed depreciatingly. The men hadn't come to follow Jebra, they'd come to follow "The Coyote." His only saving grace was that hardly anyone had realized he was the one until after he'd managed to impress a bit of his real personality on them; they still followed and respected him, but at least they treated him like a human being now.

Jebra's cavalry had gathered a much larger force than Karl's as they traveled through Alan, picking up some of the fastest refugees from Kannon as well; over six hundred men in all, perhaps a hundred on horseback.

The real surprise though had been Wood. Passing through the mountains, they'd discovered that Kannon was actually a VERY well liked monarch; those few men of the mountains who could had left their fathers and brothers to help escort the royal family. There were only about forty of them, but they were almost all cavalry; Alex had been delighted to discover that a full two dozen of them were horse archers.

Then of course they'd sprung command on him; just over 800 men, who he'd been put in charge of.

He'd almost cried.

"What are your plans for your troops?" Chiffon asked, too busy glaring at Deed behind his back to notice his wince. It puzzled Alex to no end; around Ariel or Fiana, Chiffon was warming up quickly; a bit shy, but she was making friends. She was still formal and distant to both Miranda and Else, but Alex couldn't blame her. Heck, she really hadn't changed all that much; she just seemed to hate Deed in particular.

Deed smiled at him sympathetically; SHE knew better than to think he'd be pleased with military command; this was just conversation, not praise. "I'm surprised you aren't in charge of the cavalry; there are far more infantry."

Alex sighed; odd that no one seemed to notice it in the middle of a victory procession. Eh. "I don't know the first thing about training cavalry; as far as I'm concerned, Jebra's the man for that job. I at least know how to show men to march." Granted, he'd learned it in Band class, but it worked. He even got to use some of the old commands he'd gotten from his drill instructors. He grinned, wondering what Mr. Cox would think to see it.

Chiffon spared one last glare for Deed before smiling shyly at Alex. "You'll do wonderfully; men trust you."

"And why shouldn't they? HE at least doesn't try to slip around picking fights for no reasons."

"Something you know all about..."

Further arguing cut off as Bucephalus reared, pawing at the air and neighing. He wasn't trying to throw Alex; he only did that in the mornings now. Still, it was enough of a surprise that Alex was forced to fling his spear arm out, Achiya still clasped in it as he regained his balance.

Cheers erupted following what had unknowingly been a wonderful heroic pose.

* * *

Alex wanted dearly to hit someone or something in his impatience. They'd been dragged through a long, winding route through the city (partially because winding roads were easier to defend, but Alex was pretty sure it was mainly to make sure that they passed enough curbside for everyone to gawk at them); by the time they actually reached the castle, an hour and a half had passed. Though Alex HAD been rather proud of the surprise and awe directed at the infantry he'd taught to march; they looked good at what they did.

Back to the griping though. As if the long, tedious march hadn't been enough, they'd been forced to endure various speeches from various dignitaries and generals before they'd been allowed to meet the King.

Fahn had been a godsend in the proceedings, as far as Alex was concerned. The anime didn't do him credit; he exuded a palpable aura of command and wisdom; there were some things you just can't transmit over pure image. He'd also kept the proceedings mercifully short; no speeches, no flowery proclamations, just simple and heartfelt thanks to all the people who'd felt any right to come into the throne room. Though he worried a bit how Parn was going to take the heart-to-heart about his father that would be coming up in a few episodes.

What was driving him crazy though was the current wait. He hadn't heard anything about the banquet that was supposed to occur, so he figured it wouldn't happen for another few days. He had a little bit of time, but he didn't want to waste ANY of it; there were shops that would close soon, and he wanted to get the jump on his plan ASAP.

Which meant that Fahn's reunion with his daughter was getting irritatingly long. Alex just prayed he'd be able to jump in before duties of state came up again.

"What are you doing here?"

He nearly jumped. He wasn't sure why (his self-depreciation prevented him from coming to the obvious conclusion), but Deed had started spending a lot more time around him. At least Chiffon wasn't here to start up another sniping match. "I need to speak to Fahn about something?"

Deed frowned. Looking around furtively, she leaned closer. "Another prophecy?"

Alex winced. Telling her had been unnecessary, but he didn't really regret it. What he DID regret... "Please don't call them prophecies."

"That's what they are, aren't they?"

Alex shrugged. "Maybe, but I don't like that word."

Deed frowned in confusion, but decided not to pry. Yet, anyway. "Well, is it?"

He shook his head. "There's going to be a large battle between Marmo and Fahn's allies, but I don't need to see the future to tell you that. This has to do with it; I need to train and equip my men better if they're going to have any chance."

Deed was silent for a moment. "Your men, hmm? Do you even realize what you're saying?" Pain seemed to cross her features a bit. "You weren't joking; you've changed things. I just didn't think that you'd be one of them too."

THAT took him aback. "What are you talking about?"

"THIS!" she snapped, not caring if anyone heard. "One month ago, you were this good-natured stranger who claimed to be able to change the world. Now, you tell me that you need to command YOUR men, and I believe you! You ARE the commander of these men!" By this time, she was panting slightly. She was also becoming quickly aware of the fact that she was drawing attention. Flushing, she dragged Alex around the other side of the doorsill. "I don't want you to change."

Alex stared at her. "Deed, what are you talking about? What do you mean, change? This is who I am. I know that I'm...well, doing things I never considered, but that doesn't mean I'm someone different."

"You're not being yourself."

By this time, Alex was starting to get a bit angry. Four days of being in the middle of a feud between two women was NOT something he enjoyed; it reminded him of certain childhood events he'd never had any real fondness for. Still, he'd fought long and hard to be able to maintain civility and pretend to be happy under any and all circumstances. "Deed, you said so yourself; we met just over a month ago. Besides that, I just spent two weeks across the continent; you haven't known me long enough to figure me out that well."

I am not entirely sure how this registered with Deed. All I can tell you is that it tripped something. "And I suppose Chiffon does!"

Alex growled audibly; enough was enough. "What does Chiffon have to do with you knowing me? And while we're on the subject, let's get this over with; why are you and Chiffon fighting so much anyway?"

"You tell me; how did you two hook up anyway?"

"'Hook up?' Deed, I saved her from a gang, and she decided to tag along."

"Tag along!" We kindly note that at this point, reason had taken a backseat in Deedlit's thought process. "You could have discouraged her! But no, you kept her along anyway; you're just hot to get into that little short skirt of hers, aren't you? That's all you care about, and you'll take whatever you want however you want it!"

SLAP.

Alex would hate himself for that. He would spend long nights agonizing over what he'd just done. To tell the truth, he was agonizing over it at the moment. Somewhere anyway. Mostly though, he was trying to restrain an overwhelming urge to throttle the high elf.

Clenching his fist very deliberately as he lowered it, he stared at her, jaw clenched. The tears that were beginning to form didn't help, but he ignored that for now. "I'm sorry you think that way of me. I can't imagine WHY you consider me someone who'd force a woman, particularly as I recall you seeing me crush someone's throat under my foot for attempting what you just accuse me of." Shame and...fear? crept over her face as she tried to apologize, but he plowed on. "You want to know why I let Chiffon tag along? It's not her appearance. When I met her, she was on the verge of being gang-raped on the streets of Kannon, and no one cared. There was no one to care about what was being done to her; I was the only one who seemed to. SHE DOESN'T HAVE ANYONE ELSE WHO CARES WHETHER SHE LIVES OR DIES, DEEDLIT. I'm not going to deny her what things quite a bit lower than humans can expect."

Deedlit was a high elf. While dwarves are defined by their intransient natures and humans by their flexibility, what defines an elf is her pride. That pride was all that kept her from bursting into tears outright as she fled.

Anger having run out, Alex allowed the overwhelming sensation of being a heel to wash over him. _Wonderful. For the first time in your life, you've just bawled someone out. And best of all, you bawled out a woman who you used to think you had a thing for. Simply brilliant, Charlie._

Sighing, he turned to regard the throne room. Silence had hit soon enough for everyone to hear him slap Deed, though no one knew why, or what had occurred prior to her running away. Condescending smiles were in evidence as Alex entered the room; he turned to GLARE at one of the younger, higher-ranked lordlings mentioning 'scoring her on the rebound' (that was just what his Gift of Tongues translated it as), and was grimly rewarded by the sudden loss of color on his face.

Had he known that the sudden pall was due to the fact that his eyes were currently the color of molten gold, he might have worried. As it was, smiles vanished like snow on a bonfire as he made his way to face Fahn.

The king was made of sterner stuff; more than that, he at least remembered that this man was responsible for saving his daughter's life. He would not be so discourteous as to draw attention to his brief altercation.

Alex didn't bother with titles or formalities. "Your majesty, I have something of a favor to ask."

Fahn ignored the outraged murmurs; he noted curiously that the man's eyes were fading; they were now the color of a sun on the horizon, a burning red too bright to be blood. "You saved my daughter's life. If I can fulfill it, I will do so."

Alex nodded. "Roughly eight hundred men from Alania have followed a banner proclaiming me; they have come to Roid to fight for the alliance. Perhaps fifty of these men are trained and battle-tested; most however are farmers and shepherds." He took a deep breath; being in the presence of a king was overawing him enough that anger was being replaced largely by guilt. He plowed on. "I will see to their training as best as I can, but training isn't going to keep most of them alive. I need equipment for them; armor and weapons."

Fahn sighed. Trust him to ask the one thing he couldn't give. "If I could do so, I would put these men in the armor of the Holy Knights and be glad for it; there are too few knights among our ranks as it is, I'm afraid." He sighed. "Unfortunately, that would be impossible. Every blacksmith in the city is working day and night to prepare just the Valisian soldiers."

"I expected as much," Alex said simply. "All I ask of your blacksmiths are spearheads; enough for four hundred men. More importantly however, I need money." He raised a hand to forestall the outraged cries. "I believe that I can arrange for armor that won't put further burdens on your own weapons smiths. I only ask that what I commission be paid for."

Fahn nodded gravely. "It will be done." He owed the man that much. "We have plenty of spears for your men."

Alex shook his head. "I just want the heads," he said. "There is one other thing; I'd like a guide who knows Roid top to bottom; I'll need their help to find the men I'm going to need. And the location of a field where I can train a large number of men at once."

Fahn nodded again. "I'll appoint one of our pages to be your aide-de-camp. As for your men, you may use the main practice field of the castle if you wish."

In a surprise move, Alex knelt gracefully, _seiza_ position. Bowing forward, he pressed his forehead to the ground. "Thank you."

* * *

Chiffon started as the door burst open. She may not have liked it, but she and Deed had been given a room to share. What insults she could manage died an abrupt and painful death as Deedlit flung herself onto her bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. Even here, in the privacy of her own room, she refused to sob.

Understand; Chiffon may not have liked Deedlit, but she didn't really hate her. In addition to that, a lifetime of being subjected to apathy and abuse had highly sensitized her to other people's suffering; she wasn't the sort to ignore that kind of thing. "What's wrong."

"SHUT UP!" Deed snapped, her control finally breaking as tears began to flow more freely. "YOU'VE WON, ALRIGHT?"

Chiffon stared; this was a side of the haughty elf she hadn't in her wildest dreams imagined. "...Won what?"

Deed looked up miserably; no puffiness of feature, no redness of eye would mar an elf's perfect face. It was that lack of contrasting ugliness that made it all the more painful; a wounded dove hurts us more than a wounded crow. "Just go away."

Still in something of a state of shock, she complied woodenly. Once out the door, she sagged to the floor. _What could have happened?_ Deed's statement that she had 'won' came back. Without the emotional elf in the room, it was easy to concentrate on the bare statement. The only thing she could have won...

She gasped. _Alex. Why did..._ she slowly lowered her head to her knees. He'd done something to hurt Deed. Over her.

She sniffled quietly. Getting Alex for herself had certainly been among her intentions. Doing this to Deed in the process? No.

Through the castle of Roid spread three little balls of misery.

* * *

Night had fallen. In some ways, the day had been a success. They'd returned a princess to her father after all; that had to count for something, right? Alex's trip through Roid had been successful; he'd located the sack-makers and bell-casters he needed, and managed to commission the work. That's a little bit of success, right?

Chiffon nerved herself as she approached his door. She hadn't been able to get anything out of Deed all day; she just prayed that as close-mouthed as Alex was, he'd be too unhappy to keep it all inside.

Assuming he was unhappy about what had happened...

She banished the thought and prepared to knock.

And froze, her first thought returning as through the thick oak door came the sound of Alex whistling a cheerful little melody.

If she'd know the title of this delightful little melody was Suicide Is Painless, she might have reacted differently. As it was, she opened the door and peeked inside without knocking; her equivalent of bursting into a room.

She was startled to find no light whatsoever; no candles, lamps...not even a tinderbox. A common misconception that D&D has fostered is that elves can see into infrared. This is not true; it took her a while to make out Alex's form lying on his bed in the dark (he'd stopped whistling when she came in).

"Did you need something?"

She started. "Alex...I needed to talk to you."

She heard a deep sigh. "This isn't the best time Chiffon. I...let's just say my day didn't end well."

She nodded, realizing halfway that he wouldn't be able to see it. "I saw Deedlit."

Silence. Finally, he answered, "I think we need to stop talking."

She forced herself not to stop. "Alex, what happened?"

The silence stretched longer this time, but as Alex could still hear Chiffon breathing, he finally answered. "She said some things that were rather hurtful to me. I in turn did some things that were hurtful to her."

Chiffon waited for further explanation, but nothing was coming. "What did she say?"

"That's none of your business."

She winced at the finality of his voice. "Alex..."

"I think you should leave."

She swallowed against a sudden lump in her throat. "Alex, I'm not leaving until you tell me what happened."

Silence, though just for a beat this time. "Suit yourself."

She frowned at the sudden rustling of cloth. "Alex? What are you doing?"

Ignoring the note of panic, he replied, "If you wish to remain here, do so. I will not."

What most people forget is that with such long, pointed ears, elvish hearing is quite as good as their supposed night vision. Chiffon managed to move to intercept him; neither being used to moving around blind, when they hit they managed to tangle themselves up rather badly, falling to the ground in a heap.

Chiffon winced; she'd been on bottom when they hit. "Alex, please talk to me."

"I don't – "

"Please!"

He sighed at the desperation in her voice, but she'd been right. He kept things in too much as it was; he didn't want this one to fester.

Chiffon gasped as she felt his hands sliding around. She heaved a mental sigh of relief as his hands slid off her arms to the stone floor; he'd just been searching for a non-perverted handhold. She trusted him, but some things were hard-wired after so long.

Alex didn't bother with a preamble; he'd noticed that it was getting easier to speak clearly; he no longer stumbled for words or phrases. "Today, Deed and I got in an argument. I'm not entirely sure why, or over what. The crux of it was when she essentially screamed at me loud enough for most of those in the throne room to hear clearly that I was only having you travel with me is so I can force my way into your panties." He smirked darkly at her gasp. "My reaction was a bit more...physical," he added sarcastically as he drew out a pair of flint strikers to light a candle. "Namely, I slapped her."

Chiffon gasped. The candle light cast a particularly sinister gleam over Alex; his current bad mood and guilt certainly added to that. She watched as he wordlessly picked up a brass candlestick, lighting the other lamps and torches throughout the room. "I said some things afterwards, but I'm not sure if they were hurtful or not. I basically told her that I was here to try and help you because you didn't seem to have anyone else. By that point though, I'm fairly sure the damage was already done."

Chiffon was quiet as he again took a seat on his bed. "Did...did you just lose your temper?"

Alex shrugged. "In a way. I...Chiffon, I hate to say this. I hate myself for it, but when she..._insinuated_ that I might rape you, I wanted to strangle her." He snorted a bit of a bitter laugh at her gasp. "Horrifying, isn't it? This is a person I like."

There really was only one question at that point. "Why?"

Alex was silent. This silence had less to do with avoiding talking and more to do with organizing his thoughts. "Chiffon, I don't really know why, but rape has always seemed like some horrifying sin, worse than anything else; blasphemy, murder, theft..." he shook his head. "I don't understand it in the least. Until less than a month ago, I'd never even known someone who'd been hurt like that, but for some reason that...it's just the worst thing I can imagine. And when she..." he sighed. "It was like being told by someone whose opinion you value that you're everything in the world that you have nightmares about someday becoming."

Chiffon was quiet. "She didn't mean to hurt you."

"I know that!" he snapped, more at himself than at her. "I know she didn't do this to hurt me, and I didn't want to hurt her..." he winced; he'd said the exact opposite a few sentences ago. "I don't know, but I didn't want this to happen; I don't like hurting people this way. I'd never killed someone, I'd barely even fought someone up until a month ago, but I can handle that. Death is final, but I can at least make sure they don't suffer if that's what happens. How can I do that when the damage is emotional? How do I live with inflicting a pain that I can't end quickly?"

Chiffon had no answers. She hadn't come to give answers, she'd come to try and find them.

In the silence, Alex took a deep, shuddering breath. "How much of that did you hear?"

Chiffon frowned. "Alex what are you..." her voice trailed off as the door creaked open to reveal Deedlit.

She wasn't crying anymore, but it was painfully clear she was still upset. "All of it, I think." She seemed to have trouble staying in the here-and-now. "When Chiffon started moving, I followed her. I thought you...and her were going to..." She sniffled, wiping her nose with forearm in a decidedly unladylike fashion.

Alex nodded slowly. "Nothing much left that I can say, is there." Statement, not a question.

Deedlit hesitantly came into the room. Chiffon made room for her, but she took a seat on the bed, next to Alex. Silence dominated the room uncomfortably until Alex finally spoke. "I'm sorry."

Deed started. "What?"

"...I had no business striking you. I won't ask you to forgive me, but I owe you that much."

Deed stared at him. She'd called him the most detestable thing in the world he could have imagined, and HE was apologizing to HER? "You had every right – "

"No I didn't." There was an odd, tired finality in his voice. "I had every right to be upset with you. That doesn't mean I had any right to act that way."

Deed stared at him; regardless of the stereotypes, he had a knack of twisting her emotions around. "Act what way? Angry?" She felt a stirring of anger herself as he nodded. "What else were you supposed to feel? If I made you angry, you should have ACTED angry!"

Alex shook his head tiredly. "You heard me; I don't like hurting people this way. Do you have any idea how many times a day people do things that irritate me? If I acted on every single one of them, acted as cruel and vindictive as I could, no one would ever be happy around me."

"So what, you just want to bottle it all inside?" Chiffon asked. This was something she understood. His full answer surprised her thought.

"That's precisely what I want to do." He put a hand physically over Deedlit's mouth to forestall her angry retort. "I've bottled up emotions before, regardless of how unhealthy that's supposed to be. But frankly? Having just gone through an emotional outburst, I can honestly say this was the worst of the two options."

Chiffon stared. "You bottle up your emotions because it makes you HAPPIER?" Bottling them up she could understand, but that was one reason that seldom comes up.

Alex shrugged. "I told you, I don't like to hurt other people's feelings, because every time someone got hurt that way, they took it out on me. So I got very good at ignoring slights, insults...you get the point. I learned to stop caring so much, to forgive quickly. It irritates me sometimes that I don't stay angry as long as I think I should, but...I'm rambling, aren't I?"

Deedlit stared at him. "That...that's not natural. That's crazy."

"Crazy is a compliment, as far as I'm concerned."

How do you respond to that?

Alex saved them. The fact that he was never this open or talkative never even crossed his mind; Lodoss apparently DID have an affect on people. "Listen, I don't know why you two are fighting with each other." He wasn't sure why they started blushing at that, but decided not to question it. "Frankly, I don't want to know. But for god's sake, if you can't be nice to each other, could you at least be civil? Please?"

"Why should I be civil to that slutty - "

The sound that came out of Alex's mouth was somewhere between a growl, a groan, and a shout. It managed to keep Deedlit from completing her slur and prevent Chiffon's retaliation outright. "Please? If you're not going to be civil, just...just stay away from each other, alright?"

The conversation continued for several minutes before he managed to get a reply out of the two that didn't dissolve into a verbal sparring match. At which point the two left, having the decency to wait until they were outside of his room before they started arguing again. Alex shook his head, slumping against his headboard. On the plus side, Deedlit was no longer absolutely convinced that he hated her. On the downside, nothing else had been resolved.

Now if they'd started up another catfight...

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! Bad thoughts! Very Bad Thoughts!

Outside, Deedlit paused long enough to stare Chiffon dead in the face. "I'm not going to lose him," she stated.

Chiffon drew herself up to her full height; enough elvish blood ran through her veins for her pride to demand a rejoinder to that. "And I am not going to give him up."

* * *

The next day was quite a bit quieter. Well, not really, but the arguments taking place and such weren't ones that concerned him, and that was quite enough for Alex. Announcements were made at breakfast that a grand ball would be held on the night of the full moon (Deed had helpfully translated that to be four days from today). Alex privately wondered how so many of his assumptions of the series had held any water whatsoever. Time was a huge one; Lodoss was a big place. How on earth could he have thought that they could manage to cover the distance from Zaxom to Roid in just under three days? Assuming that the ball took place the same day Fiana was returned would have been ridiculous; he had some trouble seeing noblewomen of any race or planet putting up with having to wear something that wasn't brand new and immaculately tailored. Though having grown up with three sisters, he might have had a slightly enlightened view of what women did. Not much, but a little.

Still, that gave him four days to try and put together an army; then he'd have to deal with the ball, and the next day he'd be off on a wild goose chase to Wort's castle. He really wished he could get away with just flat out telling them everything he knew about Karla; he would have preferred to spend the time putting his men in some semblance of order. Though hopefully Wort would be able to shed some light on some of the holes that the series left.

He'd been...somewhat pleased by Chiffon and Deed. They weren't talking to each other, but at least they weren't arguing anymore. More importantly, they were giving him some personal space, something that had been in short supply the last few days.

Which brought him to the present. He hadn't bothered with armor or shields yet; he'd had a chance to talk to the various craftsmen that he needed, and they'd agreed to provide him with what he needed, though it would be at least two weeks (they claimed) before they could get everything ready. Finding a lumberyard in the city had been difficult but not impossible, and he'd had them deliver a huge supply of twenty-foot ash wood poles; two hundred so far, with the rest arriving by the end of the day.

He couldn't help but feel a small swelling of pride as he found the men lined up in solid, uniform ranks. He never would have thought that he'd like being in charge of people, but it was a heady experience. He nodded to Jebra at his side; he was still a little embarrassed about outranking the career soldier, but no one else seemed to notice or care. Parn, Orson, and Shiris were trailing behind as well, with Karl trying vainly to start a conversation with Orson; he gave it up quickly enough though.

Alex took a deep breath as he stood before the eight hundred men that had been put under his command. "Today we begin your training in earnest. I can tell you honestly that there is no force on Lodoss that will be trained to fight quite like you." A double-edged sword of a comment, but they took it the good way. "Captain Jebra will conduct cavalry training, both light and heavy horse." He nodded to the captain, who in turn nodded to his officers. They dispersed quickly and efficiently, calling out anyone who'd come on horse who could fight decently on top of one. "Of those remaining infantry, I will be training three hundred and eighty four personally. Parn, Shiris, and Orson will be training another seventy five, while Karl will be given command of all those using missile weapons." Karl nodded nervously; Alex had had three days to convince him to train and another to point out some of the methods necessary. "Are there any questions?"

One of the younger archers stepped forward. "Um...I didn't come here to learn how to shoot people, I came here to learn how to use a sword." A number of agreeable sounds came from the other archers and slingers.

Alex wordlessly turned back to the salle, returning a moment later with his seven-foot composite bow and an arrow that was longer than his leg. Not bothering to answer any questions, he strung it easily. He'd gotten so many images of being shot from Achiya when he'd gained the spear that he was fairly sure that arrows had killed the monstrous bird. One odd thing he'd noticed was that the lance's spirit was both terrified of and in awe of archers; there'd been a real sense of joy from it when he'd practiced archery.

Another odd thing he'd noticed was that the spear made him a better archer, or a stronger one anyway; he could now draw the bow to the full length of its curve. He could only do it maybe twice before he was completely exhausted, but he could now shoot an arrow from a bow that had been weight tested with a draw of one hundred and forty four pounds.

He calmly drew the long arrow along the bow's length, sighting for one of the practice dummies roughly a hundred yards away. Unlike the normal straw figures, this one had been covered in retired armor; it was mainly used for cavalry to charge at. Aiming carefully, Alex loosed. There was the faintest, barely audible ping as the arrow struck, punching a good eight inches out of the other side of the target, having just penetrated eight inches of straw and half an inch of iron.

Turning to the now-silent soldiers, he rested his hands on the bow. "You have spent a lifetime developing this skill. I would have to be a complete idiot not to use those skills."

The same archer spoke up. "But...well, it's not very heroic..."

Alex sighed. He'd been dreading this lecture, but it was time to get it over with. "Not heroic." Sighing, he gestured for the men to cluster around them. Once they were close, he looked them over very slowly, very quietly. He let the uncomfortable silence linger for almost a minute before finally speaking. "If you men came here to win a war, that's fine. If you came here because you wanted to gain glory, fame, and honor by distinguishing yourself on the battlefield, pack up and leave. Now."

Uneasy murmurs greeted his ultimatum, but no one thought he was serious. Not really, anyway. Still, he'd gotten their full, undivided attention. "Jebra probably hasn't told you this. I doubt that Fahn will tell anyone either, but we're going into battle against forces that are going to significantly outnumber us. We are NOT going to be fighting duels on the battlefield; most of you who die are going to die from a backstab as one goblin keeps your sword arm busy enough for his comrades to stab you in the kidneys. You're going to trip over goblins playing dead, so that kobolds can ram spears into your abdomens since a torso shot might get stuck on ribs." Queasy faces greeted that grim announcement. "We aren't in this war for glory. If glory was all that mattered, then WE would be the ones fighting on Marmo. This is a war of self-preservation, a war of defense. We didn't start this fight; we're not in it for glory. We're in it to live. And we will NOT live if we try to all be heroes."

"But..."

"NO BUTS!" he roared, startling them. "I meant what I said. You will fight where I tell you, HOW I tell you because that is the best chance we'll have of staying alive, and keeping our allies alive. You will take your enemies from behind, outnumbering and outflanking them because that is what armies do. You will not hesitate to take advantage of an enemy's weakness because that is the only way you will live long enough to EARN some 'glory.' Now assemble into your companies."

They were quite a bit sullen now; Alex wished briefly that he hadn't quashed all of the hero worship, and immediately decided to take a blow to the head during practice if he thought that again. Still, he needed men who would follow orders. He'd read somewhere that a huge part of the problem with samurais in armies had been their need for personal glory. Granted, obedience to their lord had been a huge factor, but eventually they lost control and charged in a disorganized mob. It was a similar situation to what he had; he seriously doubted that the soldiers under his command were the quiet, good, obedient sons. They would have had the sense to stay behind and tend to their families. No, he got the ornery, restless, glory hounds.

Sighing, he put his bow back in the salle as the men grudgingly formed up. _Four days of this shit._

_God help me._

* * *

Parn called a break among his swordsmen as he turned to watch Alex stride over. He hadn't known him for all that long, but he recognized that his expression wasn't one he normally saw. He seemed...displeased.

"I understand that some...discouraging words were said among my sarissans," Alex started.

Parn wiped the sweat from his face. Alex had mentioned that the men he was training were going to be using a weapon called a sarissa; a twenty-foot spear, grasped close to the butt. "What do you mean?"

"Something about the uselessness of such a big weapon?"

Parn shrugged uncomfortably. He had no illusions of worship for the man, and he'd heard good points made several times. "Well...it's pretty unwieldy, you have to admit that. How are they supposed to defend themselves if someone gets past their spearhead? Which," he pointed out, "is pretty easy when you can't swing a weapon."

"They're not meant to defend themselves," Alex replied.

Parn felt like he'd been kicked in the gut. "What?" Anger decided to boil up. "So...you're just building a throwaway unit?"

Alex ground his teeth. Ironically, it had been all the 'Alexander the Great' references that had given him the idea to train his men to fight in a phalanx formation; that and the realization that organized companies didn't really exist on Lodoss. The problem was that the phalanx needed both discipline and trust to work; the men in the front ranks had to trust the guys behind them. And Parn's casual little comment had essentially destroyed their trust.

"I don't see what you're so angry about," broke in a new voice. "You should be grateful we're pointing out your mistake; we can train these men to fight in a way that won't get them killed."

Alex turned to the man in armor, wearing an Alanian badge of rank on his beret. "I'm sorry, you are?" Acting polite, incidentally, is not so easy when you're convinced someone is going to get people relying on you killed.

"Marius," he responded. "Commander of the regiment of heavy horse sent by King Kadamos to aid in the defense of Lodoss."

Alex slowly smiled. He'd found out the other day about his eye-color changing; he could recognize the sensation that meant his eyes were going blood-red (he had trouble remembering things when they turned gold). Though the soldier's sudden gasp may have had something to do with it. "I see. My training is foolish. If I may paraphrase you?" His smile darkened as it widened. "Your men are trained to fight on foot, I assume?" At the man's cautious nod, he turned to look at his own men. "Have your troops dismount. I think a training battle might be good for my men. And have them use practice swords."

Alex smiled as he strode towards his portion of the field. There wasn't all that much to teach someone about a sarissa; point it where you want and stab. Don't stab anyone in your ranks, and don't hit anyone with the butt end. Getting them to work properly wasn't easy, but he thought they could manage. He watched as almost two hundred Alanian Heavy Horse dismounted, distributing wooden swords and shields amongst themselves. "Company A1 and B1, form up side by side; I want a full 12x4 grid." He turned. "In a few seconds two hundred armored men are going to charge us." He sighed at the uneasy murmurs. "We will remain stationary here; simply do as you've been taught." He turned to face them at parade rest. "I know that many of you don't trust what I've taught you. Fair enough. I know that many of you aren't particularly happy with this combat method. Again, that's fair. But for now, there is one thing I want to ask of you. I ask that you trust me when I tell you that I want to see as many of my men still alive at the end of a battle as possible." He smirked. "Because every last one of you is a Coyote now. Coyotes are not particularly strong or brave. They are in fact best known as cowards. Just remember this though; in a fight, the coyote is the last one standing."

Marius formed his men into a skirmish line; single file, stretching as far as possible. Not bothering to wait, he ordered the charge. How DARE that peasant presume to order him!

The fact that he'd obeyed without thinking cropped up, but arrogance quickly pushed it aside.

Alex calmly walked out of the path of his sarissans. "Lower pikes, and remember to stagger the ranks; trust the men you've given your back. Trust them to keep you safe."

Parn stared as the men quickly compacted into a box formation. The charging Alanians were no more than thirty feet away when the massive spears lowered into staggered formation, four ranks deep. The Alanian swordsmen in the front easily battered the first rank of pikes aside, only to fall as the men of the second and third ranks smashed faces and ribs with the tips of the poles. Ironically, knocking the spears to the side only succeeded in sending them into the men standing beside them. As was customary, they charged face-to-face; flanking or stabbing an enemy from behind was dishonorable, after all.

It took less than thirty seconds for Alex's Coyotes to batter their more heavily armored opponents into pain or unconsciousness. In that time, maybe fifteen of the almost two hundred soldiers had managed to get close enough to threaten the pikemen. The Coyotes had suffered a loss of only two men.

Alex smiled at his men. They looked more bewildered than their opponents (though that could have been because said opponents were all unconscious). "THAT is how a phalanx fights. Imagine for a moment that those spears were real." He watched as the image settled into their minds. "Once the battle is joined, the only obstacles you'll have to think about will be the dead bodies you'll be marching over." Not bothering to speak further, he left. "You're squad leaders will continue the drills for the day."

One of the pikemen pulled his spear upright; it was the only way to rest the bloody things. Looking at the battlefield, he glanced towards a very bewildered Alanian cavalry commander, then to the practice field littered with sandbags roughly six feet long and two feet wide. "Marching over dead bodies...you don't suppose that's why he's making us practice on the bags, do you?"

The only answer he got was a cheer from over three hundred men who had abruptly gained a rather significant boost to their confidence.

* * *

What with one thing and another, four days had passed. Slayn had managed to successfully talk Chiffon into taking sorcery lessons on the second day, and had spent most of his time either instructing her or working with the various court mages on the problem of Karla. Etoh had gone straight to the Valisian temple of Pharis and was for the most part living what he would have considered a normal life. The fact that Fiana had shown a remarkable surge in religious fervor and was coming at least daily to speak him was puzzling just about everyone, though Deed just kept on grinning. Wood...to tell the truth no one was really sure what Wood had gotten himself into. All they knew was that the handful of times he showed up Ariel was either with him or looking for him. Ghim had commandeered one of the royal blacksmith's forges and was spending his time beating out the spear heads that Alex needed for the sarissa; when asked, he simply responded he needed something to do. Alex spent his time either instructing his 'army' or practicing on his own.

And in this manner did the day of the royal ball approach.

* * *

Slayn was on the verge of going crazy. For a guy used to living in coarse linen, wearing silk isn't exactly all that comfortable. Sure, it's soft and light and rich, but if you're not used to it, the material can make your skin crawl in a not-quite-bad-but-certainly-noticeable way. Granted, he wasn't upset that he'd been given such fine clothes for the banquet, but he wasn't quite comfortable with it yet. Between that and all the minor-to-midlevel nobles who were trying to make small talk, he sincerely wished he was somewhere else.

He smiled as Etoh joined him. He at least was enjoying himself.

"Quite a party, isn't it?"

Slayn nodded. "All for morale, I imagine." He chuckled a bit. "Any idea when the rest of our group is going to be showing up?"

Etoh shrugged. "Karl is somewhere here already; the last I saw, he was running away from some of the more aggressive young ladies. No one's really sure what happened to Wood." He paused, and very slowly allowed his jaw to drop as he noticed who was descending the stairs.

Deed was dressed in a full-length gown in dark green, complete with full-length gloves. In terms of style it looked identical to the one she wore in the OAV, just a more flattering color. Opposite her, Chiffon was wearing a similar gown, though hers was a rich sapphire blue instead.

As for Alex...

It wasn't his fault. That was his story and he was sticking to it.

(Flashback)

"_No."_

_Deed sighed. Getting him to agree to escort her to the ball hadn't been all that hard. She wasn't quite sure how it had gotten to the point of him escorting her AND Chiffon, but she didn't mind too much; it just gave her an excuse to one-up the half-elf. Getting him to agree to come to a fitting for proper clothes though..._

"_Why not?"_

_Alex glared hatefully ahead. Ogres, goblins, kobolds...heck, he wouldn't have minded fighting a dragon at this point. Anything to get him away from this...horror. "They bring back very bad memories of horrible, mentally-scarring things that my sisters did to me when I was too young to properly defend myself."_

_Chiffon blink-blinked. "Tights do that to you?"_

_Alex shuddered. "I was four years old, and they forced me into this horrifying polyester gown. So I don't really care what any of you say. I don't care if it's not a particularly feminine garment on Lodoss. I am NOT wearing tights." (2)_

"_Please? You can't go to the ball in your normal clothes."_

"_Then I won't go."_

"_WHAT?"_

_Alex winced. He could deal with anger. The hurt on the other hand... "It's not that I don't want to go, I just don't want to have to wear that."_

"_What would you like to wear?" piped up one of the seamstresses. The one who had been struggling for the past five minutes not to burst into laugher._

_Alex sighed, rubbing his temples. "I don't know, just...no tights."_

_Deedlit started rummaging through hangers. "Haven't you ever gone to a formal occasion before?"_

"_Of course I have."_

_Chiffon looked up in interest. "What kinds of things?"_

_Alex shrugged. "Dances, mainly. My school hosted them."_

"_What did you wear to them?"_

"_A tuxedo," Alex mentioned. Then instantly regretted it at the sudden gleam in various eyes. Mainly in those belonging to the various seamstresses._

_One stood, smiling. "What's a tuxedo look like?"_

_Alex looked around frantically, but he didn't seem to sense any reprieve. Deed seemed curious and Chiffon...it kind of startled him, but she just looked amused. Carefully edging out from the sudden crowd of somehow sinister-looking women, he started poking around the racks of clothing, hoping to find enough to jury-rig an outfit._

_  
He didn't find a single thing._

_Sighing one last time, he picked up a pen and pad of paper and quickly sketched a rough drawing of a tuxedo. "Kind of like this, I suppose. The jacket, vest, and pants would all be black, the shirt's white, and it fastens with enameled studs." Then he noticed the sudden appearance of crude muslin (for patterns), measuring tapes, pins, needles, and scissors._

_They descended on him like an evil khaki wave. (3)_

(End Flashback)

He didn't look bad in the make-shift tux. They'd gotten the design almost perfect, though he'd regretted showing them how a tailcoat should look. The suit had ended up looking vaguely Victorian; the shirt was a comfortable button-down, with a maroon ribbon crossed and fastened at the throat instead of a bow tie. The coat was single-breasted, the hem falling just past his waist in front with full tails behind. He'd decided against showing them the almost halter-top-style vest that normally went with a tuxedo, going with a completely normal vest instead. Polished, black leather knee-high boots had been thrown in; they'd even sewn him a cape that simply draped over his shoulders from fine black wool, lined in a kind of maroon-colored silk.

If he were to be totally honest with himself, he'd probably never looked better in his life.

He just wished that everyone would stop staring at him.

Fiana stepped forward, smiling in delight. It had been her idea to offer the gowns to the elves, and she was pleased with the result. "You look wonderful!"

Deed blushed becomingly as he led her down the stairs, his right hand in hers. She would have preferred that Chiffon hadn't taken possession of his left, but for the moment she didn't care. "Do I really?"

Fiana nodded, then turned in mock-reproach to Etoh. "I just wish dear Etoh here would have agreed to something else."

The cleric flushed. "I...I couldn't! I'm a priest, after all!"

Fiana's expression became one of interest. "So priests really aren't allowed to wear anything but robes?" Taking advantage of his continued spluttering, she managed to innocently attach herself to his arm. "Don't you think you'd look wonderful in something more formal? What about Alex? Don't you think you'd look nice in something like his?"

Mercifully, Etoh was spared an answer. For that matter, roughly fourteen different men and women across the ballroom were spared various awkward pauses and such as all conversation and music came to a complete and utter halt.

Wood had entered the ballroom.

Wood had entered the ballroom in a formal robe made in the style for Kannon.

Wood had entered the ballroom, shaved, cleaned, and barbered until he at least resembled someone or something of vague respectability.

But most importantly, Wood had just entered the ballroom with Ariel glued to his side. Alex was among the first to stop gaping. Though Slayn managed to beat him in regards to getting a smile under control.

The sorcerer calmly slipped through the crowd around the stairwell, smiling politely at the couple. "Wood, I never would have recognized you in that robe. And the Princess looks particularly lovely."

Ariel blushed slightly as she shyly accepted the praise, Alex and Etoh hurrying to add to that. Mainly because where Ariel couldn't see it, Wood was pleading for an out.

Fiana smoothly drew Ariel to her side, insisting that there were several noblewomen of the court who she simply _had_ to meet. Alex carefully drew Wood to the side, finally giving way to the laughter that was threatening his serious expression. Though at least he was quiet about it.

Wood just glared at him. "Kill me now. Please."

Alex got himself back under control. "So tell me. How the hell did this happen?"

Wood didn't blush. He hadn't blushed since he was fourteen, and that was almost twenty years ago. Therefore this had to be some kind of optical illusion, some trick of the light. "It wasn't my idea! She cornered me one day and started talking about how much she wanted to go the ball, and how glad she was that I'd saved her and..." he shook his head. "I don't know how the hell she did it, but by the time she and I walked away, I'd promised to take her here." His eyes turned pleading. "Alex, she expects me to dance with her. DANCE. ME. What the hell am I supposed to do? I don't know how to dance!"

Alex shook his head. "If it gets desperate, wait for a slow song, drag her into a corner and – "

"Alex, if you're about to say what I think you're about to say, I am going to stab you. I'm not sure WHAT I'm going to stab you with, but I'll figure something out."

Alex stared at him. "I was going to say, take her into a corner, hold her hands, and just sort of sway in time with the music. That's what idiots like me who can't dance used to do back home." He frowned as Wood sighed in relief. "Why? What did you think I was going to suggest?"

Wood shrugged, at least partly in embarrassment. "Well, you know..."

Alex frowned. Then fought the urge to cold-cock Wood when it hit. "That's disgusting! Wood, you're old enough to be her father! She's what, sixteen?"

Wood shrugged helplessly. "Hey, it happens on Lodoss. Besides, considering how clingy she is, there's a chance she wouldn't mind."

Alex held his tongue. If Wood hadn't looked as nauseated as he did, he would have...well, he would have done _something_ violent. As it was, he just pasted a smile onto his face, slung a companionable arm over the thief's shoulder, and proceeded to drag him back towards Ariel.

_

* * *

"Six lights had gathered, evermore known as the Six heroes.  
__One of them a white-garbed knight, holy sword in his hand. Now the king of Valis; his name was Fahn.  
__One of them a knight, his heart stolen in the conquest of the demon. The emperor of Marmo, his name was Beld.  
__One of them a dwarf, final ruler of the Kingdom of Stone. Never to be forgotten, his name was Fleve.  
__One of them a sorcerer, a fountainhead of knowledge. The great sage of Moss, his name was Wort.  
__One of them a cleric of Marfa, protector of our motherland. The great northern priestess, her name was Neese.  
__The final one, a warrior of magic, the only flame which had no name to give..."  
_

Alex started as the doors boomed open. It was strange, but the blind harpist who'd been singing the epic had managed to weave some kind of spell into the music. He'd honestly forgotten completely about what was going on.

Then he started to hear the outcries of recognition, and belatedly remembered where he was, and what was going on.

Deed's ears drooped; it was kind of funny. The most sophisticated race on this planet, and they showed their emotions the same way that wild animals did. "Who's that?"

Alex shrugged. "Kashue Arnague I. The mercenary king of Flaim, who won his kingdom by might of arms alone."

Deed's eyes widened. Parn's eyes widened further.

* * *

Karla smiled to herself as she watched Ashram's forces pouring towards the border guards. They'd been fortified recently; Wood had taken the time and effort to warn them of what was coming, and oddly enough, they'd listened. Still, Ashram's forces were simply that much more vicious; they cut through the first line of garrison towers and men as though they were scything down wheat, and it would barely take them an hour before the entire army had flooded the southeast of Valis, stabbing a thorn deeply into Fahn's side.

Despite her smile, she worried. Alex worried her; he knew too much. He'd known her plans, he knew her great ambition, something that she had spoken of to only one man. She had learned through scrying of his most recent fight against Ashram; he'd had no chance of winning, but not through a lack of skill. Had he been fully recovered...she shook her head, banishing the thoughts. She was beginning to think that he could not be controlled. As such, he needed to be destroyed.

Still, she had time. Her smile slowly returned; perhaps not as gleeful, but it was a smile all the same.

Perhaps that little game she'd prepared for her potential champion would turn out to have a few added benefits.

* * *

Deedlit sighed as she made her way past the ladies. They were polite, well meaning, and charming. They were also mostly shallow and insipid; it was nice to be complemented, but after too many compliments you started to tune them out. She smiled eagerly as she noticed Alex; he'd been dodging dance partners all night. If he'd dodged everyone _except_ her, she might have been a bit happier about it, but at least he hadn't danced with Chiffon yet.

She sighed theatrically as she swept around to his side. "It's tiring, just standing around curtsying and talking about nothing." She frowned a bit, more from worry than displeasure. "Aren't you enjoying yourself? You've just been standing here. Don't you want to dance?"

Alex winced slightly. "Deed, have you ever seen me dance?"

She smiled. "No. Though we've never really been in a place where that would be appropriate."

Alex laughed quietly. "There's a very good reason for that. I'm not a very good dancer."

She pouted at him. "Who cares? Shouldn't you just dance; shouldn't you just try and enjoy yourself?"

Alex shrugged uncomfortably. "I never really enjoyed dancing. I dance like an Asian; jerkily."

"You said you went to dances," Deed countered.

Alex winced. "I went to two, maybe three where I actually danced. Most of the time, though, this is what I did; stand around in a corner and wonder why I was here."

Deed sighed as she turned to watch with him. Fiana had bullied Etoh into dancing; she couldn't help but giggle at the panicked expression on his face. The princess could have done far worse; Etoh was a perfect gentleman. Wood...keeping any semblance of control at the sight of him being dragged around the floor by Ariel (and every so often Ariel's mother) was getting difficult. Though whereas Etoh was uncomfortable just from being shy, Wood was probably worrying more about the fact that several young nobles were glaring at him, ostentatiously stroking the hilts of their daggers every time he caught there eye. Slayn was nowhere to be seen; Karl had found some of the older women, and was dancing with them simply out of politeness. Well, politeness and the fact that as long as he was escorting grandmothers around the floor, the handful who were hitting on him left him alone. Mostly, anyway.

She paused in her view as she noticed his eyes brushing over Chiffon; she was talking quietly with several of the younger ladies of the court. She sighed; she'd taken his request to be civil seriously, and had to admit that once she wasn't actively convinced that he was going to brush her off for the half-elf...that was an awkward sentence. Regardless, she'd discovered that Chiffon was actually somewhat nice to be around. She'd admitted that she hated elves as a rule, but had softened quite a bit. Deed winced. Considering the reasons that she'd managed to drag out, she couldn't really blame her.

Still, wasn't she worth even a glance? On a whim, she slid along the wall, leaning against him. His sudden jerk was almost...gratifying. "She is pretty, isn't she?"

He started at the sudden contact. "Wha?"

Deed smiled. "I noticed you're keeping an eye on Chiffon. She really is beautiful, isn't she?"

Something about the situation tripped a warning in the back of Alex's head, and swallowing down his sudden state of nerves, he managed to demure. "I suppose so. I'm kind of worried about her though."

That wasn't quite what she'd expected. "Why?"

He nodded towards a trio of the guests. "I've been overhearing rumors about those three; they have a bad reputation for...shall we say, 'taking liberties' with the peasantry."

Deed frowned. "What does that have to do with Chiffon?"

He sighed. "I overheard them earlier tonight making rude comments. And over the past hour, they've been getting progressively drunk. Drunk enough to do something stupid."

She blink-blinked. "You're really worried about her, aren't you?"

He shrugged uncomfortably, and regretted as the motion inadvertently reminded him precisely where Deed had grafted herself. Whatever he'd been about to say was halted as several Ladies drifted by, murmuring about how good Kashue was at dancing.

"As skilled on the floor as he is with his sword," cooed one.

One of them, a brunette whose name Alex hadn't caught, sighed melodramatically. "It's a shame that he's alone. There are so few men who can match their strength and skill." That she'd managed to glare at him over her shoulder was duly noted by both him and Deed; she had been perhaps the most obnoxiously clingy of the handful of women who'd been trying to dance with him. _I remember now. THIS was why I didn't want to be remembered as a hero_. He let out a surprised...exclamation as Deed suddenly seized his hand and started to drag him onto the floor. "What are you doing?"

Deed glared right back at the little tart. She wasn't quite sure where that little spark of outraged pride had surfaced from, but it had caught and she would be damned if she was going to slow down now. How DARE that little...tart try and badmouth Alex! "We're dancing!"

"I told you, I don't know how! I don't know the first thing about waltzing!"

"I'll lead," she replied curtly.

That would prove harder than she'd thought. She was, after all, all of five foot two. Alex topped six feet. She sighed in frustration as she dragged him woodenly over the floor. He was getting the hang of the steps, but she was having to literally force him to follow her lead. She 'eeped' as abruptly, he gently directed her in a different direction. She almost stumbled, but caught herself easily as Alex took the lead. He was still a bit clumsy, but at least he was moving easily enough. She glared at him as he drew her along the edges of the waltz, though there wasn't any real heat in it. "I thought you said you couldn't dance."

He shrugged uncomfortably. "I just said I didn't know how to waltz."

"You said - "

"I said that I didn't enjoy dancing. I said that I wasn't very good at dancing." He sighed. "That doesn't mean I don't know how."

She stared at him as bit by bit, he managed to relax into the dance. Finally, she shook her head, laughing a bit. "You're not really all that bad, you know. You could be very good if you practiced."

He shrugged. "I don't know; I still get uncomfortable dancing. I guess once I've started I relax a little, but it's still hard for me to start."

Deed smiled. "Do you think you can improvise a bit?"

"How so?"

She pulled a bit further away. "Spin me." She was a bit surprised at how easily he managed. "I told you so."

"It's easy when you have such a light partner."

She blushed at the compliment. "Thank you."

They continued for almost a minute as Alex led her through the waltz. It was kind of nice, just talking about nothing in particular; she was eaten alive with curiosity about Earth, and it was easy telling her. She seemed a bit disappointed with his admission that magic and such was generally considered folklore, but was openly amazed when he started to describe commonplaces of his world.

"You've made machines that can fly?"

"They're called airplanes; there's one that flies so fast that it could take off at noon on one side of the continent and land on the other side at ten o'clock in the morning."

Deed stared. "You can fly back in time?"

He paused. "Oh yeah, there aren't established time zones on this world. No, you don't fly back in time, but...it's kind of complicated..." he frowned darkly.

Deed mirrored his expression, gently easing him around, switching to find his view. She sighed in mixed disgust and disappointment as she noticed Chiffon floundering under the three afore-mentioned nobles' drunken advances. Turning to Alex, she began pulling away. "Go ahead."

For his part, Alex was torn. On the one hand, he had little doubt that they could and would take advantage of her if he did nothing. On the other hand (and this worried him), he really didn't want to disappoint Deed by ending the dance so early. And on the third-hand (we're assuming this is some kind of Shiva or something), he had little doubt that if he tried to confront them, it would degrade into a brawl that would rather neatly destroy the entire purpose behind this ball in the first place.

Sighing, he shook his head a bit, managing a threadbare smile as he firmed his grasp on Deed. "I...she'll be alright until the end of the song."

Shock would be the best word to describe Deedlit's reaction. It was painfully obvious that he wanted to go and do something about it, and he was going out of his way to try and make her happier, and...and she was absurdly pleased by the gesture. And if Chiffon did do something with those three, she might find someone else to cling to, leaving her clear with him, and...

She sighed as Alex continued pulling her through the steps, trying to 'subtly' get close enough to intervene. _Why do I have to be fair about this?_ She mentally asked. Working with him, they were almost there.

The waltz they were currently dancing had become something of a circle dance; the established couples were in the center, while the more timid or less-skilled dancers were waltzing rings around them. They would be coming parallel to Chiffon in just a second...

Deed caught the half-elf's eye, a mixture of plea and fear, and she winked at her. In the next instant, she spun out of Alex's hands, seized, Chiffon, and with equal parts grace and bodily force, spun her into Alex's arms in her place.

It would be hard to say who was the most surprised by this; Chiffon, Alex, or Deed herself.

Chiffon flushed as she felt Alex's arms close protectively around her. He pulled her careful in the proper motion, keeping his back to the nobles until they'd spun past before he opened up enough for the right stance. Chiffon flushed faintly as his hand found the proper resting spot on her left hip. "I...I don't know how to waltz!" she whispered.

"Neither do I, really. Just try and play along, and remember; 1-2-3, 1-2-3..."

Deed sighed as she watched them go. Alex had stopped his rough instruction long enough to make eye-contact; the smile of mixed gratitude, pleasure, and respect touched her; the physical contact would have been nice, but she'd just scored big points with him.

"Hey sweetie, if you wanted to 'dance,' you could have just asked. We can dance with two."

_Ah yes. The village idiots_. Assuming a sunny smile, she turned to the three drunkards. "Do you know when I first met Alex? I saw him killing goblins. Have you ever killed goblins?" The expression on her face was at the moment pure bimbo. Assuming they have that word; I think it's safe to believe that bimbos exist on all worlds.

One of them laughed. "Honey, there ain't nuzzin' we can't kill."

She giggled. "He was really mean about it though; you know what he did to the first one?" She leaned forward, whispering conspiratorially. "He knocked it on the ground, and then he started crushing its throat." Their smiles faded as she somehow managed innocence while describing the sickening crunch of shattering cartilage. "I guess he really doesn't like pushy guys," she finished.

One of them managed a sickly smile. "Pushy guys?"

"Oh yes. Those goblins were trying to be pushy with a girl. I think that's why he did that." Smiling, she turned and strolled away.

None of them followed her.

Alex was currently wishing that his partner was still Deed. It wasn't that Chiffon was all that bad; she had a natural grace and seemed to manage to learn the simple steps easily enough. It wasn't that he preferred Deed to Chiffon; sure, he could talk to her about Earth, but that was no reason to prefer one of them. Mainly he wanted to be dancing with Deed because SHE wouldn't have snuggled into his arms. Sure, it was an innocent snuggle from her point of view, but it's really hard for guys to think about innocence when they're chests are getting rubbed by a very generous pair of...

_HELP!_

In case you were wondering, no. No help came.

The end of the dance a few minutes later was his only reprieve, as he managed to spin her out of his arms and bowed. At which point he noticed a thoroughly panicked Wood catching his eyes. He pounced on the excuse. "Thank you for the dance Chiffon."

She blushed becomingly. "No, thank _you_. I've never danced before."

Internally seething at the need to maintain a polite façade, he pointedly looked in Wood's direction; thankfully she took the hint and followed his gaze.

Wood sighed in relief as Alex began making his way over. "Er, sorry Ariel, but I needed to talk to Alex about something."

She pouted at him. "You won't be long?"

_Why the HELL can't I say 'No' to her?_ Finding no answer's, he managed to smile and mutter some vague affirmative. At which point Alex arrived. Not bothering to begin, they extricated themselves and prepared to run.

Wood sighed as they cleared the entrance of the balcony. "Do you have any ideas for breaking out of THIS castle?"

Alex shook his head as he produced a ceramic bottle of wine that he'd grabbed on his way out. "No, and this time they WILL hunt us down." He slung himself across the railing of the balcony next to Ghim. "This is becoming a hell of a mess." Bracing himself, he opened the jug and took a swig, downing it as quickly as possible. In his entire life, he had consumed maybe 4 oz of alcohol. As such, he had very little tolerance, and a pronounced disapproval for drinking.

At the moment though, he thought he needed it.

He managed to keep from choking at the raw feel of the wine going down his throat, but it didn't do anything to keep his eyes from watering. Or coughing once it was all down the hatch. Wordlessly, he handed the jug to Wood, who took a similar swig, though his was much more controlled.

Ghim eyed the two idly. "Rough night?"

Wood shook his head as the wine started to kick in. "You could say that." He looked at the morose dwarf. _Not drunk, just buzzed_. Shaking his head he managed to turn his head. "Look at me for a sec, would ya? See anything that a woman might like?"

Ghim snorted. "What the hell would I know about that?"

"How about a princess? See anything that would make a princess decide to...'dote' on me?"

Ghim coughed into his goblet. Swiping wine from his beard and mustache, he glared at the thief. "Kid, you're dreaming."

Wood sighed as he watched Alex force down another mouthful. "I hope so."

Alex shook his head; the second shot had gone down a lot easier, but he hadn't really noticed anything besides a spectacular blush; the so-called 'Asian Tan.' He looked at Ghim. "Still worried about the girl, huh?" He clapped a companionable hand on the dwarf's shoulder. And managed not to wince; the dwarf had a muscular consistency approximately the same as granite. "I've got just the thing to cheer you up."

Ghim managed a laugh. "That a fact? What?"

Alex smiled. _Huh. Guess the wine's kicking in after all_. "There's going to be an assassination attempt on Kashue in a minute or so. Wanna go kill the assassin?"

Ghim looked at him idly. Seeing seriousness, he shrugged, hefting his axe. "Why not?"

Wood looked at him a bit skeptically. "How are we gonna know who to kill? Or when to kill them for that matter?" It should be noted that after seeing other possibilities, Wood was willing to believe some of Alex's more outlandish announcements.

Alex just laughed as he found a sword attached to the wall and managed to unobtrusively pull it down. "Trust me, it'll be pretty obvious."

Precisely 12.4 seconds later, Alex's words proved prophetic (wince) as piercing feminine screams split the ball room. Not without cause though, as a lumbering mass of bone and muscle approximately eight feet tall stumped into the ballroom, bloody sword in hand.

Parn and Kashue rushed simultaneously between Fahn and the former guardsman. Naba, for his part was working under the mental compulsion 'kill Kashue, kill Alex,' and really didn't notice. As Alex wasn't immediately visible, he was settling for setting up for a vicious blow against Kashue.

Said vicious blow was halted by the fact that a dwarven battle axe had just impacted his spine over the hips as a flung broadsword rammed through his neck, severing the spinal cord neatly between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae.

Alex shook his head at the sight. "Aimed low."

Ghim shrugged as he strolled over to retrieve his axe. "Not our fault; we're both kinda drunk." Wood shook his head and sighed; they'd killed him before he could throw any daggers. The three turned and ambled away; the ball was pretty much over, and Alex and Wood at least were quite grateful and ready to get into something a little less formal.

In the ensuing silence, Prince Jester's arrival was accounted by most as a godsend. Gave them something else to think about.

* * *

Alex yawned as he calmed Bucephalus. After four days of stable care, the gray stallion was restless enough that he didn't even care that he was being saddled. Alex was grateful for that; he'd gotten three hours of sleep the night before. Shortly after Jester had arrived, he'd been dragged into yet another pointlessly long greeting ceremony. Kashue, having heard about Alex's 'reputation,' had insisted on getting some sparring in. The only reason he wasn't all that bruised was because Parn had shown up. Though by that time it was over; Karla had shown up, offered Kashue Lodoss, and left in a state of nerves when he'd mentioned idly that balancing scales needs a feather touch, not a sledgehammer.

He sighed as he swung into the saddle. He'd left instructions with Jebra and those who looked intelligent; he hoped the training would go on properly while he was gone. If he'd ridden alone, he might have been able to make a one-week round trip to Moss and back; maybe two weeks at the most.

Slayn, Deedlit, Wood, Etoh, Ghim, and oddly enough Chiffon had all decided to ride along with him. It would slow him down, but he was frankly touched by their concern. It would be nice to have friends.

There'd been a near fight when Chiffon had innocently suggested that she should ride on Alex's horse with him the whole time, but that had been the only rough point. If you didn't count Larth showing up and having to be shooed off. Or Ariel trying to have an awkward romantic good-bye with Wood. Or...

Come to think of it, maybe leaving Valis for a while might be a good thing.

Stifling a yawn, Alex started them forward. Once they were out of the city, Wood would take over; he knew the road to Moss better than Alex did, but at the moment he wanted a few moments of blissful irresponsibility. He smiled a bit as Deed drew abreast of him; she was smiling, and seemed to have no issues with what had happened last night. Then he noticed a subtle brittleness creep into her smile.

On his left, Chiffon smiled shyly at him for a moment before her look turned decidedly cool as she met Deed's gaze.

Drawing back, Alex shook his head. It was odd, but the chemistry kind of reminded him of Ayeka and Ryoko; one was demonstrative, one was trying to be proper and shy, and they were mutually belligerent, with him in a similar role as Tenchi...

It took a few seconds for the full implications of that possibility to register, at which point it slammed across his temples with all the subtlety of a runaway freight train.

Swallowing around a suddenly dry mouth, he called out, "let's get going!" as he healed Bucephalus into a full gallop. Just before he shot past them, he thought he might have heard a muted protest, but he chose to ignore it. The thought that they might be...with him...he was NOT that lucky. Or unlucky, depending on your interpretation.

_There is NO WAY IN HELL that could be happening to **me**. NO WAY IN HELL. NOPE, NOT GONNA HAPPEN, COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE..._

To be continued...

(1) - Hooray for fanservice!

(2) - Unfortunately, this really happened.

(3) - Not entirely appropriate, but I love the quote. It came from Bloodsucking Fiends (A Love Story) by Christopher Moore.

Author's Notes: God, this took a long time to get done. Sorry for the delay, but I decided not to write anything while final exams were going on. Anyway, hopefully chapter five won't take too long.


	6. Chapter 5: Of Tunnels and Temptation

Disclaimer: Open document. Insert cowardly attempt at pacification of publishing giants. In short, disclaim. Etc, etc.

_**Chronicles of Murphy**_

_**Book of the Accursed**_

Chapter Five 

Of Tunnels and Temptation

It was a dark and stormy night.

Well, not really. I mean, the stormy part was quite accurate; it was coming down hard enough that trying to climb through the mountains had ended up with them nearly getting washed down the slopes several times. Between that and the constant lightning (several nearby trees had been struck, one falling just in front of them), it was not the most pleasant place to be.

So it may not have been particularly dark (and as it was about eleven in the morning, certainly not night), the stormy part was accurate enough.

There were seven of them, all told. Save that some were tall, some middling in height, and one was just plain short, there were no readily apparent details, as each was completely wrapped in heavy burlap rain cloaks.

Well, except for the tall, skinny guy with the spear and ridiculously huge bow. Who was currently smirking at those who were sweltering and damp. "You shouldn't have made fun of my umbrella."

No one said anything, though there were moves by Ghim and Woodchuck to draw weapons. Instead, they followed Ghim into the intricately carved entrance to the Dwarves' Great Tunnel.

It was a relief for all concerned to shed the bulky, hot, scratchy, and generally unpleasant rain cloaks.

Wood unceremoniously flung his cloak over a statue decorating the entrance. "So this is your legendary tunnel, huh? Heard it used to be a great place for buying Dwarf goods; some smugglers I used to know always swore by this place. Though mostly it was for the sake of that dwarvish booze of yours."

Ghim sighed. It had been a long time since he'd had a decent ale.

Slayn smiled a bit; over the years, Ghim had given him various gifts; usually just pots or chairs; things he needed and never managed to remember to take care of on his own. They'd never been anything special, but then, dwarf craftsmanship was something special in of itself. "It must have been home to many a skilled artisan.

Idly, Ghim brought his hand up to one of the engravings dotting the square columns; this one a kind of stylized ram's head. With little effort, he shattered the rock under his fingertips. He sighed again; what had once been perfectly cured and aged stone was no crumbling in damp and mildew; it was shameful. "That was a long time ago."

Wood winced. He knew Ghim was strong, but he wasn't THAT strong; traipsing along a ten-mile tunnel built from crumbling stone was NOT on his list of fun things. "Uh, you sure there isn't another way to Wort's place?"

Slayn shrugged apologetically. "Unfortunately, this is the fastest way. There are other routes, but we simply can't afford the time."

Chiffon sighed. "I just want to know why we left the horses at that garrison. These tunnels are big enough for horse-back riding."

Deedlit snorted in disdain, somehow keeping it relatively lady-like. "It smells so moldy in here. Do you really want to imagine what it would be like if we had that combined with wet, sweaty horse?"

"SHUT UP!" Ghim barked. _Moldy_? "You don't like it, go around. Better the time than having an elf defiling my ancestors' home."

"WHAT did you say?"

Alex groaned quietly; Chiffon jumped to Deed's defense, Etoh was playing peace-keeper...nothing was as boring as a place where nothing changed. It was odd, but for all that Chiffon seemed...well, ashamed of her elvish heritage, she was starting to develop a bit of pride in it. As such, she was double-teaming Ghim with Deed every time he made some snide comment about them. Unfortunately, it seemed to be the only thing they agreed on; their arguments had fired up worse than ever.

Before, it had just been an issue of them sniping at each other and being petty with nastiness; they insulted each other and that was about it. Discounting that one catfight anyway (for the sake of his sanity, he was trying to forget those images). Now...now there seemed to be a lot more actual anger and genuine malice in them. Then, just as he was convinced that he was going to have to tie them up to keep them from killing each other, they turned around and spent hours chattering like the best of friends.

He'd never claimed to understand women completely. He'd had three sisters growing up and had to deal with all their friends, so he thought it was fair to say that he understood women just a tiny bit better than most men. Still, they were making it painfully clear that he didn't understand them all THAT much.

Though privately, he was beginning to suspect that they'd come to some agreement and were acting this way just to confuse the hell out of him.

As it was, he was somewhat relieved when the various demon-looking things around turned out to be vicious and somewhat bad-tempered monsters who wanted to eat them.

It gave him something else to think about for a while, anyway.

It was first noticed in WWI. It's generally agreed however that Desert Storm was the decisive conflict which proved it. Namely, that the ability to fight in three dimensions (air) rather than two (ground combat) is a HUGE advantage.

So while four of the seven were accomplished, skillful warriors and the other three were far from slouches, it didn't change the fact that they were in serious danger from dive-bombing gargoyles.

Slayn winced as Alex charged, his spear ramming through one of the gargoyle's throats as he ran towards Wood. As it was, he couldn't figure out how the thief had managed to land after a sixty-foot drop and still be uninjured, cushioning effect of a dead gargoyle's body or not. "GET EVERYONE INSIDE! WE'RE SITTING DUCKS OUT HERE!"

There were a few pauses of shock that SLAYN of all people was yelling orders, but they trusted him enough to do so without too many questions. Without any, actually.

The mage raised his crooked staff, runic lines of spells engraved in the hawthorn flaring to life as he channeled the manna. Old lessons settled in his mind as he entered the half-trance necessary to handle the power without losing perspective of his surroundings. _"Source of all power, come to my aid. Let you be guided by my hand against these false ones. You, whose natures have been cloaked, cast off these false garments and reveal your true selves!"_ One of the dive-bombing gargoyles' dive was rather painfully halted as it rammed into a projected wall of force, crumbling into so much rubble.

What you have to remember is that gargoyles are not a natural race of Lodoss; they are essentially magical golems that can be trained, or rather 'programmed' for certain simple tasks. Slayn had no need to shatter them, while the physical force released by his spell was negligible; just enough really to make sure that they didn't fall on his head. Rather, the main thrust of his spell was forming a shear so to speak, severing the weaves of magical energy that kept the monsters alive.

Not an easy task, but not a particularly difficult one either.

Within, Wood sighed as he looked over a statue; some kind of goat-headed chimera. It almost looked as though it had scales instead of fur; some sort of heraldic device most likely. "What a shame. It would have been worth a lot if it were complete."

Chiffon looked at him disapprovingly. "How can you be so casual? What if Master Slayn gets hurt out there?"

Wood looked up in surprise. " 'Master' Slayn?" His fist slapped into his other hand. "Oh yeah, he's teaching you magic." He turned back to examining the statuary. "Frankly, I don't think Slayn has anything to worry about from those things. You haven't had a chance to see him fight yet, so it's understandable for you to worry. Still, trust me. Or trust him, at least."

Chiffon had the grace to flush; she did trust Slayn, but she had no idea if he could handle that thing anyway. She remembered the fireballs he'd had so much trouble with when they'd first met, but then he'd claimed that the sorceress who'd summoned them was Incredibly powerful. Still, she didn't want to lose her teacher.

Deed let out a delighted cry as she pulled out a heavy gold necklace. Fastening it around her neck, she darted over to Alex. "How do I look?"

Alex frowned a bit as he finished tying his umbrella back. He wasn't sure what, but there was something he couldn't remember; something important that he was supposed to do in the near future. "Seems kind of...I don't know, gaudy."

Etoh winced through his compliments. Even he knew that hadn't been what she'd wanted to hear.

Slayn sighed as he entered; what with tramping from one end of the continent to the other, he was getting in better shape. Still, it wasn't easy manipulating magic. At least now he could manage something a bit more potent than a basic sleep spell before he started to feel exhausted. "It's as though some dark presence is trying to hinder us," he muttered, more to himself than for anyone. "Dwarves wouldn't have used magical guardians, they would have used deadfalls or mechanical traps. Besides, Ghim would have known about them in the first place..." he winced. Considering the purpose of their mission, he had an excellent idea what had caused the brief attack.

* * *

There were not six warriors to enter to the cavern below Marmo in the first Age of Heroes; there were seven. The warrior maiden Flaus, a priestess of Pharis fell in the battle (1). Of the remaining sixth, the so-called warrior of magic who had remained nameless simply slipped away beyond the reach of history. The dwarf king Fleive was dead now. Fahn now ruled Valis, Beld ruled Marmo. Neese stood guard over the temple of Marfa in northern Alania. 

And last of all, Wort, the Great Sage of Moss, considered by many to be the finest and wisest sorcerer alive, remained in a great stone tower, shut from the concerns of the world in the pursuit of pure knowledge.

He had never been a large man; even as a boy he'd been short and slight. Still short, he had filled out with the fruits of fine food and easy living. Little remained of the scrappy mercenary mage who had hired himself out alongside Beld so many times; he was an older, sadder, and wiser sorcerer now. All that remained of that young man now was a sharpness of mind that age had been unable to dull, a certain recklessness that burned for all that few opportunities to exercise it remained.

He was content for now to sit back and read.

"A day...a year...a lifetime...an Age...do they really matter?"

Wort had lived too long to be easily startled. Someone breaking into his supposedly unbreakable tower, someone who thought they were clever enough to speak in riddles that HE wouldn't understand...nope. Not enough to rattle him. If there was one thing he knew, it was that he was only good, not perfect. To him, a break-in was not a question of If, it was a question of When. "Who goes there?"

A throaty chuckle met his question as bit by bit, Karla faded into view. "Forgotten so easily? Weren't you the one who swore to protect me when you charged that demon?"

THAT was enough to startle him; there were only four people alive who might have known that, and this woman was most certainly not Neese. Which left...

Karla smiled at the dawning shock in his eyes. "The memory stirs of our great battle in the caverns under Marmo."

Wort didn't allow his jaw to drop, but it would have conveyed his feelings quite nicely. This woman was decades too young, but the circlet...that impossibly memorable circlet... "But!"

Karla's smile turned gently frank and admonishing. "What is a body? Nothing more than a gown, to be worn or discarded with the ages."

* * *

Fahn looked down, interest managing to briefly cover his gloom. It was fascinating to watch the Coyotes drill. Jebra's cavalry were training not just to fight on horses, but rather to use the horses as weapons themselves; blacksmiths had been hired to build padded greaves for the forelimbs of their mounts. Coordinated cavalry charges with lances...he stopped for a moment to try and imagine 200 heavy cavalry striking an enemy force at full gallop. He winced at the incongruous mental picture of men being flung into the air from the impact. 

Watching archers firing salvos wasn't all that interesting, though he felt the idea had enough merit to begin training a corps of bowmen to fight that way. The men who were fighting with those odd, long-headed javelins were almost comical as they danced towards their targets and leapt back after each throw. Sword and axe men were fighting in both rank and individually, though there was little new with that.

But the phalanx...

He shook his head. Marius was still smarting from his loss, but having seen the men, he was amazed that none of the Alanian horse had been injured. Four hundred men in solid ranks, charging behind twenty-foot pikes. He almost pitied whatever got in their way.

They weren't perfect; he had little faith in their ability to withstand a flanking attack or change direction, and they would be almost useless in close combat. Still, in a frontal charge they'd be virtually unstoppable.

He watched as various detachments went through specific drills; The Wedge. The Ripple. The Cutter. The Hedgehog.

He sighed. Impressive, but it did little to distract him for long. That boy, Parn, had come in several times to speak with him; the awe in him was painfully obvious. Awe for the man who'd let his father die. Fahn remembered Tessius only too well, a man who had given not merely his life, but his honor for the sake of Valis.

He paused as he noticed the clank of armor behind him. "King Kashue."

The younger king nodded graciously. It was frightening at times how much the king had aged in the mere days since the news of fighting along the borders had arrived. "I like that boy Parn. Good eyes on him."

Fahn sighed as he turned to watch the young man leading the swordsmen. "I never would have imagined that I would meet the son of Tessius..." he sighed. "No. No, I think that I always knew I'd meet. Someday I'd have to heal the wound."

Kashue frowned. Tessius had fought many of the tribes that had eventually become Flaim; he knew the story well enough. "Tessius?"

Fahn shook his head. "There are times when it is a great and marvelous thing to be a king, but they are few and far between. There are too many possibilities of hardship for a monarch. And despite all the pain and sacrifice, I can honestly claim the moment I let him march away as the greatest shame I ever felt." He sighed as he turned to return to the throne room. "I only pray that I can make use of what Tessius gave me; make something meaningful out of what he was willing to die for."

Kashue shook his head sadly as he watched Fahn walk away; he had grown up on legends of the Holy Knight who had returned from the caverns of Marmo. He knew loss; one didn't become a king without sacrifice. Still, he looked at Fahn, and wondered if he could be stronger. In ten years, in twenty, in fifty years perhaps, would he be so bent with worry and care? Would that be the price he paid for his crown?

* * *

Deedlit grumbled a bit. "How much longer is it?" 

Ghim snorted. "What, you expected a little jaunt in the park? The size of the great tunnel is legendary! We'll be in here for miles."

Wood grimaced. "Just keep us on track, okay? I don't fancy losing my head in here."

Ghim smirked. "Relax, kid. This isn't a maze or some sorcerer's labyrinth. So long as we keep going straight, we'll reach the other end."

"Takes a long time with a dwarf leading," Chiffon quipped. "Those little legs just aren't built for speed, are they?"

Deed giggled a bit as the half-elf started trading insults. She was getting better at this game, that was for sure. She paused, her eyes widening at the sight of a magnificent ornamental rapier embedded in a rock pedestal. Every inch was gold or carved ivory; it had never been meant for combat, merely to be looked at, to be admired and drooled over.

Alex frowned in thought. _Okay, we enter the tunnel. The gargoyles attack. There's a dragon that Karla's going to wake up and sic on us at some point; that takes up about a third of this episode. There were cut scenes of Karla and Wort reminiscing in his tower, there's a scene where we first find out that there's some big secret about Parn's father..._ He sighed. There was something important, and it was driving him crazy trying to remember. _Okay...wait, that's right. This is episode one, even though it's the fifth or sixth in chronological order, so they make sure to stress the whole 'Accursed Island' angle. So they have the retelling of the War of the Gods in the episode and not just the opening credits...Wait, that's when Deed falls...down...the..._

"Don't touch that!"

Alex wanted to hit himself. Ghim had still beaten him to the warning. Still, it was expected of him to try and save Deedlit; even if it wasn't, he'd have been inclined anyway. "Can't you let go?"

Deed wrenched at her arm as the building stone began to shift into something new. "It's stuck!" When she'd touched the sword, it had sunk into the pedestal; the double hand-guards had caught her fingers.

Chiffon gasped as Alex started drifting towards the dropping stone. Not really thinking (and it's not like she has a track record for staying out of trouble around him anyway), she leapt for him, grabbing at his spare hand...

...and was summarily dragged down a deep chute by a falling chunk of rock.

"Bloody Hell."

Yep, Wood managed to sum it up quite nicely in just two words.

* * *

Groans were the predominant sound. 

"Couldn't you have just left that sword alone?"

Well, groans and snipes.

Deedlit brushed herself off as she stood. "How was I supposed to know it was a trap?"

"Why on earth would they have just left a piece of art like that lying around?"

"They left the jewelry, didn't they?"

Alex sighed. The stone block had slowed before stopping; they were all relatively uninjured, in that they hadn't broken or sprained anything. It might have been the generally simple viewpoint that he considered Dwarves to have. It could have been his experience of being beaten into a state of pain on a regular basis while he'd been learning to use an axe. (Incidentally, he'd been right. Ghim had given him fits when he'd found out that he'd lost the axe he'd been given). Still, he had a hard time seeing dwarves leaving a trap halfway done; something that purely and simply trapped them for later inspection...maybe. Something lethal and brutally effective...just a bit more likely in his opinion.

"That was probably supposed to be a secret passage or something," he mentioned as he stood, dusting himself off. He paused, as his hands brushed some oddly luminescent powder.

Deed smiled as she walked over. "Pretty, isn't it? It's the residue from Rock Fireflies." She brushed her hand through the faintly glowing dust, and brought them together in a dramatic clap, sending motes of light bursting around her.

Alex frowned in thought. "Rock fireflies?"

Chiffon spoke up. "That's why we weren't injured; Master Slayn told me about them. The light from the rock fireflies is supposed to have a healing power (2)."

"Does the dust?" Alex asked as he started sweeping the residue into a small leather bag.

"A little bit," she replied. "Supposedly, exposure to the light of a rock firefly will heal every wound and wash away all fatigue. The dust has some healing ability, but that's about it." She paused as she noticed Alex slowing. "What is it?"

Still careful to gather the dust, he cleared the rock in front of him; it was almost glass-smooth, and very clearly painted in a fresco. "Some kind of painting."

Deed frowned; the dust wouldn't be much use for long viewing. Cupping her hands, she quietly chanted an illumination spell. The floating orb of light burst, shedding its light over a huge domed mural of the War of the Gods.

Alex would never be quite sure what prompted him to be the one to relate the story. _"Eternity had come to an end. The Golden Age, the Age of the Gods had ended. And thus it came to be that Falaris, the god of darkness, led an army of a thousand like-minded deities and Ancient Dragons against the hosts of Pharis, god of light, the Supreme."_ It was eerie; he could almost feel as though the battle was playing out in front of him. _"In the ensuing chaos of battle, it is said that the heavens themselves shuddered, and that the earth wept bitter tears of flame and lava. Yet one by one, the gods and dragons fell, until only two remained to do battle."_ His gaze hardened as it swept across the mural. _"Marfa, goddess of creation, and Kardis, the mad goddess of destruction."_ He shook himself, suddenly light-headed.

Chiffon stared. It could have been a trick of the light, but she could have sworn that the mural had started moving along with his recitation. Though that took a backseat to the fact that he'd just related the tale in High Elvish, flawless in grammar, idiom, and even accent.

Deed stared. "You speak elvish?"

Alex started. "What?"

"That story. You just told it in High Elvish."

He grimaced. "I guess so. It's strange, but I don't have any trouble with languages; I can speak fluently in just about any language I'm exposed to, and I can't explain it."

Chiffon shrugged; she'd seen it once before when he'd spoken goblin; it wasn't that big of a surprise. She gazed upward, shivering slightly. There had been something...frightening in his voice. "In the end, Marfa and Kardis destroyed themselves. That was how Lodoss came to be, wasn't it?"

Alex nodded as he gazed at the mural. "Could a war have really been necessary? A war of gods?"

Deed frowned. "That's an odd thing for a commander to say."

"Is it?" Alex shook his head as he turned to Chiffon. "Tell me something, what is a god?" Odd. It seemed to have struck Deedlit speechless. "What about you Deed?"

The elf started. She'd kind of hoped he wouldn't ask her that either. "Well...a god is...it's just a god!"

Alex sighed. "We worship gods without knowing what they are. We know they exist, and we know that they are capable of things that far outstrip what our minds and spirits can comprehend, can accomplish. Would it be fair to say that a god is simply a...an entity that is superior in all ways?"

Deedlit shrugged uncomfortably. Theology, Philosophy...these weren't all that common subjects for her. "I suppose."

"But that's just it. If they're superior to us, why did they need a war? Couldn't they have discovered better ways to resolve their problems? Why would superior beings have to resort to such a crude...well, HUMAN experience as a war? What's the point, when you have so much power? These were personifications of fundamental concepts of our universe, and yet they descended into petty, human conflicts. Why?"

Chiffon was quiet for a moment. Finally though, she spoke. "Maybe they're not so perfect. We're not perfect; we don't even know what perfection really is. They can be superior to us, but it doesn't mean that they're perfect." She started walking around as she looked at the mural. "They put dragons up there; dragons are really superior to us in many ways, aren't they? Larger, stronger, faster...they breath fire, they wield incredible power and magic, they can conquer the skies...ancient dragons are wiser than us as well. But in the end, they fought. They fight wars; are they necessarily better? Are they so much better that they've evolved beyond the need for conflict?"

Alex stared. Intellectually, he was aware of the fact that Chiffon was quite intelligent, but it was hard to think about it; she was always in the background, always quiet. It was easy to forget about her, to ignore her, to not wonder what she might think. "Couldn't there be some way to go beyond conflict? Look at Fahn and Beld. These were men who were the best of friends in the short time they met and fought. Maybe the war is taking place thirty years after they parted ways, but they parted friends and almost instantly stood opposed. They want the same thing; a united Lodoss. They both desire a Lodoss that is beyond the need for war, but they're going to war to do that." He sighed. "Do they really want to end war? Or are they just so caught up in the absolute need for their cause to succeed that they don't even consider another way?"

Deedlit slipped between them. "The two of you seem to want to just talk for the rest of the time we're here. I don't know why the gods fought a war, and I don't know all the reasons why Fahn and Beld might go to war." She smiled softly. "But maybe I don't need to know all the reasons. I know that if I don't fight, if no one fights, then Beld will win, and goblins and kobolds and ogres are going to cover this land, and the people who are going to die won't be the ones who chose to risk their lives as soldiers. The villagers, the peasants...they're the ones who suffer from this war." She smiled again, though this soft, somewhat dreamy smile was for Alex alone. "And you seem to be working your way towards a cause of your own." She laughed. "You're so worried about Beld and Fahn and their causes that you don't even think about one for you. I don't think I'll ever understand you humans. But wouldn't life be dull if we understood everything?"

Alex watched her as she strode...no, glided into the waning light of her spell. That smile...maybe it was presumptuous. Maybe it was misinterpretation. Maybe it was the result of twenty years of repressed hormones. Still, he thought it might be safe to say that Deed was...attracted to him.

The thing was, he was almost certain that Chiffon was too. Maybe in a more older brother/younger sister way (which was ironic, considering that she was almost seventy years old; about seventeen for a half-elf), but it was there.

He couldn't take his mind off the upcoming war completely, but this was a bit of a more pleasant distraction.

Dual...El-Hazard...Tenchi Muyo...why was it that whenever some reluctant hero got involved with a different world, they started attracting women?

He shook his head as he bent back down to gathering the Dust of Rock Firefly, Chiffon helping out this time. Deed was about to weave a spell to guide them to the surface again; he'd be better off getting ready for the dragon-slaying to come.

* * *

"_To my staff I call the power to turn back the darkness."_ Slayn smiled as the light spell sprung to being around his staff. One of the secrets mages kept was the nature of a magical spell; once you reached a certain level, chanting and gestures became unnecessary for the easy spells. Light was such an easy, general-purpose spell that he could have managed it with nothing more than a 'light come forth.' Still, it was one of the rules for sorcerers; they had to keep an air of mystery by making their powers seem inherently difficult to master. 

Plus, it kept the number of apprentices within manageable levels.

Wood whistled quietly. "That's handy. Know anything for dragging a handful of idiots out from a hole in the ground?"

Ghim chuckled. "Relax." Pulling off a glove, he licked a finger, feeling for wind. "The elf knows her stuff; she can track the wind currents to the surface."

Etoh sighed in relief. "That's good to hear. Still, it's a little surprising to hear you praise Deedlit like that."

"What's that suppose to mean?"

"He means," Wood supplied helpfully, "that you're always treating her like a leper, so it's odd for you to be saying anything nice. Though I notice it's only when she's not here to hear it."

Ghim grimaced. He'd hoped they wouldn't notice that. "Shut your hole!" he snapped. "There's a difference between not liking someone and not respecting what they can do!"

Wood just laughed at him. He knew. So did Slayn, the traitor. So did Etoh for that matter.

* * *

Wort glared at her. She had been a good friend, a close ally. Still, most people fight with their friends, yell at them at least once in a while. "You were once one of the six heroes, now the feared, legendary Grey Witch. You used to fight for the peace of Lodoss, now you fight for a different cause. What do you want with me?" 

She turned to his crystal ball, a slight twist of will shaping the images. He was at least letting her use it without a fight; it was his ball, and had been for years. He might have won that fight. Still, his curiosity was greater than his animosity; it had endeared him to her so long ago.

Wort frowned as two images showed up; one a ragged group of travelers (three humans and a dwarf) and a second rather less-ragged group of travelers (you guessed it; 1.5 humans and 1.5 elves). "How are they of any interest to you?"

Karla just smiled. "You know of the dragon that nests at the entrance of the Great Tunnel? The beast that so despises being awoken?"

* * *

It wasn't really all THAT big. Shooting Star, or any of the other four Ancient Dragons for example, would have dwarfed it. But then, there isn't a whole lot that a four-hundred foot magical killing machine that out-masses some battleships won't dwarf. 

Compared to one of the wyverns that the Dragon Knights of Myce rode around on, it would be considered pretty big. Compared to any of the more intelligent dragon species around, this thing still wouldn't be all that impressive.

But that's only relatively speaking. Compared to a human being...

Well, that's a different story all together.

Slayn noticed the flare of magic almost instantly. Chiffon, being closer, actually felt it sooner, though she lacked the skill or experience to pinpoint what it had been. Deedlit was close enough and experienced enough to recognize a spell of awakening; the spirits were all but screaming warnings as something with great magical power began to stir.

Alex grimaced. All joking aside, he really hadn't been looking forward to this all that much. "Listen, stay here. Whatever that was, I'm going to try and distract it long enough for you two to run."

"Don't be an idiot!" Deed snapped, regretting it an instant later as approximately forty tons of reptile caught wind of them, and proceeded to give tongue to its rather ardent displeasure at being woken up.

Alex glared at the back of the elf as he strung his bow. His old one wouldn't have been much use; what with the extra 'oomph' he could get from the spirit of Achiya, he had gotten to the point where he could draw and fire almost ten arrows before his fingers gave out. "I wasn't planning on killing it you know; the point was for you two to get around it so that I could turn and run like hell too."

Chiffon gasped as the monster showed its head. It wouldn't be big enough to eat them whole, but Ghim...maybe it could have fit him in its mouth.

"What are you waiting for?" snapped Deedlit. "Shoot it already!"

Alex shook his head; he couldn't afford to keep the bow drawn for long; he had to wait for the right moment, and quickly. The dragon paused a bit as it noticed the three in front of it; it was an idiot, you understand. Just a dumb beast. So while there were some dim memories in the back of its head of creatures going around on two legs and being kind of dangerous, most of its rather limited processing power was wrapping itself around the concept of FOOD.

The pause was just the moment Alex needed. Drawing the bow as quickly as he could manage, he sighted and loosed just as quickly. He'd been hoping to hit it in the nostril; something sensitive enough to make it VERY disinclined to keep fighting. Unfortunately, he rushed, and his shot instead just scratched its dangling tongue. Still, it was enough to cause it pain; the dragon yanked its head upward, forgetting that the only thing in that direction happened to be large, solid quantities of stone. Its horns blunted the force of the blow somewhat, but it stunned the dragon enough for them to run like hell out of the way. Though Alex slowed down enough to shoot it through the tongue completely on his way out; he was kind of hoping a mouth injury would disincline it from spitting fire at them.

No such luck.

Instinct prompted Alex as he yanked the two elves out of the way, putting himself between them and the flame. Fortunately, Slayn had shown up quickly enough to cast a magical barrier around them. "ARE YOU ALRIGHT?"

Wood was heaving ever so slightly as he entered; who the hell would have thought that Slayn could manage any kind of serious speed? Then he saw what had prompted the mage. "Oh bloody hell."

The dragon swiveled its head to take a look at the newest prey. Had it been Parn in this case, he would have taken the opportunity to draw his sword, start bellowing, and charge, hacking at the heavily armored knees of the dragon. This was Alex however, and while he planned on killing the dragon, he planned on doing it in a manner that would lessen the chances of anyone suffering a serious injury in the process.

So, grabbing Deed and Chiffon, he hustled them out of the way, opposite the rest and straight towards the exit.

Don't think he was abandoning anyone though; it was an age-old tactic that has predated civilized thought and survived in instinct. Get on both sides of your opponent, and while one side makes sure it isn't getting killed avoiding attacks, the other is free to try and kill the prey from the other side.

Etoh was a sensible boy; he managed to hustle the rest of his companions still with him out of the way, back into the tunnel entrance, muttering a hasty spell of protection against any errant bursts of dragon fire.

Alex unslung his quiver, nocking one arrow with a second in his drawing hand. "Do either of you know any good attack spells?"

Chiffon grabbed one of his arrows, closing her eyes as she began chanting over it. Deed chose to be a bit more proactive. _"Sylph, spirit of the wind, become a chain to bind this foe!"_

The burst of arrow tore through the cavern. Alex grimaced; it would hold the dragon in place, that wasn't an issue. The problem was that he had no idea if he'd be able to hit anything in the middle of the windstorm.

Chiffon thrust an arrow into his hand. "Use this. Hurry! I can't make spells last very long; it's just going to be an arrow in another ten seconds."

Grimacing, Alex nocked the arrow hurriedly, drawing, aiming, and loosing quickly.

He'd aimed for center mass; there was no way of knowing whether or not he'd be able to manage something small like the throat or eye like this, so he'd decided on safety. The arrow was caught by one of the currents and yanked deeper than he wanted, striking the shoulder rather than the ribcage.

Chiffon started as the arrow suddenly burst into lightning; she'd known the spell, she just hadn't been expecting it to be quite that...spectacular.

Deed stared. "How did you...I thought Slayn has only been teaching you for the past week!"

"Static," Alex muttered as he accepted a second arrow; currents or no currents, the dragon wasn't going to stand around much longer. His first shot had hurt it, but it wasn't even close to dead yet, and Deed's spell was running out of power. Drawing the second arrow, he aimed for the rear limb and fired. He'd taken the dying winds into account though, and hit just below the hip joint. The explosion of electricity was a bit less spectacular this time around, but it did the job; the dragon was essentially crippled on its right side.

Wood snatched a pair of daggers out of the sheathes concealed under his bracers; he wouldn't have had any chance hitting it in that wind storm, but now...he grinned evilly as his first shot slipped right up the left nostril, his second piercing the right eye.

Alex dropped his bow and charged, spear in hand. _Only going to get one shot at this..._

Ghim had taken off the instant the winds were weak enough to not hamper his movements; he needed to hit hard and fast. Arrows, even magical ones, weren't going to put this monster down.

Ghim reached the dragon first, just in time for Wood's knives to hit. Watching the dragon whip its head around, he waited for it to start downward. "Perfect." Roaring, he dove into a roll seconds before the dragon's head would have smashed into him, using the momentum of his roll at the last moment to slash under the dragon's jaw, severing the carotid artery.

Alex had arrived a half second before the strike, using a convenient bit of rubble as a stepping-stone to get on its neck. Just as it instinctively shied back from the blade that had killed it (he was already mortally wounded, he just hadn't figured that part out yet), he rammed Achiya into the base of its head, razor-sharp copper piercing flesh and scale, punching through the spinal cord and continuing through the natural opening in the skull to pierce the brain.

What would have been a long, drawn out series of convulsions that would have caused further devastation to the Tunnel halted abruptly as all nerve function ceased about thirty seconds faster than would have occurred earlier.

Panting, aching, and now dripping in reptilian blood, Alex laboriously yanked his spear out, wincing as the metal managed to stimulate a handful of nerve cells enough to cause phantom twitching.

Ghim hauled out a rag that had somehow managed to not get drenched in draconic blood, wiping his face. He grinned tiredly at Alex. "Never a dull moment around you, kid, is there?"

Alex just glared at him as he watched blood evaporating from his spear; it cleaned itself. Handy, that. "I don't care what you say Ghim, that is the LAST time I ever go through one of your tunnels."

"We saved at least three days," Ghim protested.

"I'll take the time," Alex growled, doing his best to ignore the cheering behind him from Chiffon and Deed.

* * *

Wort smirked. "The obstacle has been dealt with, just as I said it would be. Do you have anything else you wish to attempt?" 

Karla smirked back at him. The journey was what was important, not the destination. She had time, and matching wits had simply been the fastest way to lower his hostilities. "Let us observe a bit longer. They will be here soon enough; there is much to do. Much to catch up on."

Wort shrugged. It would be good to talk to someone who actually knew more of magic than he did. "As you wish. Like you, I have nothing but time. Though whatever you have planned, I somehow doubt it will be as effective this time around."

The sorceress's smile never wavered. She had worried, but the changes were too few, too far between. Her plan was proceeding quite effectively enough as far as she was concerned. "That the scales of history will balance destiny is all that I wish."

To be continued...

(1) - She was introduced in a manga by Ryo Mizuno (the author of RotLW) called the Lady of Pharis. So any references to that story are canon.

2 - These guys are actually from a video game called Legend of the Dragoon. Still, I'll find a use for them.

Author's Notes: I realize this is a bit of a shorter chapter, but I really couldn't think of any particular changes I wanted to make; just really a chance for a tiny bit of character development, some gratuitous fight scenes, and a bit of filler, as it just didn't feel right to leave this little bit out. The next chapter though should be a bit more interesting and a bit more original. Probably not all THAT original and/or fun, but I'm saving as much of that as I can until chapter seven, where I finally get to show what Alex can do with a trained army. (Insert diabolical laughter).


	7. Chapter 6: Preparations for the Big One

Disclaimer: Unnecessary, really. Still, I suppose it's worth the effort for the sake of propriety. Kind of anyway. So don't sue me for using characters who I possess no legal right to.

_**Chronicles of Murphy**_

_**Book of the Accursed**_

_**Chapter Six**_

Preparations for the Big One

(or Sundry Plot Devices Before the Climactic Battle)

By and large, soldiers are not the brightest lot. I mean no insult to the men and women who are soldiers, I'm simply pointing something out. Maybe stupid isn't the word I'm looking for though; naïve, maybe? Misinformed? Cut off from the whole picture?

Those might be a bit more accurate. Because in a war, you can't really afford to know everything. At least the grunts can't; they have to believe, to KNOW that what they are doing is the right thing. Because you have to ask yourself, how can you kill someone knowing that they have a reason just as good as yours for fighting?

Knowing the other side, UNDERSTANDING the other side is dangerous for a soldier, because it's easier to kill something alien than it is to kill something you can understand.

Generals however, don't get that choice. Commanding officers pay for their position with the knowledge of their opponents, because they're the only ones cold, crazy, or dedicated enough to get the job done even knowing what's going on.

Though occasionally, they're thrown a bone.

(Insert wavy-lined flashback effect)

_It was not quite the scene they expected. Slayn had given them some idea of what Wort would look like. Ghim had given them some idea of what the tower might be. What they hadn't expected to find within was a banquet waiting for them._

_And certainly not a banquet prepared by Karla._

_Alex's hands had shot to bow and arrow; Ghim was possibly the only one who hadn't immediately gone for a weapon. That stopped quite abruptly as Wort arrived, informing them in no uncertain terms that he would not tolerate combat within his home._

_Reluctantly they had complied, but the important thing was that they HAD complied; they were sitting around a massive oak table boasting what could very well be the entirety of the Great Sage's pantry, having a rather one-sided conversation with the very woman they'd come to find out how to kill._

_Karla chose to break the ice. "What do you know of the kingdom of Kastuul? Specifically, of its fall."_

_Alex knew some. Still, it was Slayn who answered. "According to legend, the sorcerer's kingdom was destroyed when a great work of magic was attempted and failed."_

_Karla's smile was uncharacteristically sad. "Not quite." Her index finger extended, playing with a delicate, blown-glass goblet. "To understand how it really happened, you have to understand Kastuul itself."_

"_How is it that you know what really happened?" Etoh couldn't help but ask._

_She smiled. "I was there." Ignoring the incredulity (and duly noting that again, Alex seemed to have already known), she continued. "That legendary, great act of magic was true enough, but it wasn't the end. But the beginning..." she sighed. "Kastuul was formed from the remnants of the Age of the Gods. Perhaps they were merely the shreds of a greater society, but they were still the stuff of gods. A great, peaceful world came to be, one ruled by a sorcerer-priest who held the very Scepter of Domination in his hands." She smiled as the memories surfaced. It had been a glorious time. "In time, the sorcerers came to develop great works; there were cities in our world that floated in the very skies. And our greatest secret of all; the great crystal repositories that were able to channel and stabilize the great, chaotic magics of Lodoss."_

_She closed her eyes. "We were able to accomplish wondrous feats of sorcery with those crystals, but in time we outstripped them, able to draw more energy at a time than the crystals could sustain." Her smile was grim. "And then it came; that great act of magic that your people claim wiped us out."_

"_There are no records that state anything else," Chiffon put in. "There are first-hand accounts of the devastation caused by the Great Spell."_

_Karla shrugged elegantly. "The spell was real enough, but the story was twisted over time. Not even the gods were able to cause one single, great, sweeping act that could wipe out an entire people, and we were hardly gods. No, that act was merely the catalyst, merely the most obvious sign of what was to come."_

"_It was the barbarians."_

_Etoh shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was used to the unexplained, the power of the Other dwarfing him. Still, this wasn't foreign enough; it was hard to look at a human with the kind of power she wielded, power that in her anger she was only barely controlling._

_Karla took a deep breath, composing herself. "Our spell tapped out the crystals entirely, and the devastation you spoke of, half-elf, came to be as cities collapsed from the sky, striking this continent like the hammer strokes of an angry God. The devastation was incalculable, but it was not enough to wipe out the entire kingdom. What killed us was our reliance on the crystals; with our knowledge and spells we could have repelled an invading army of barbarians, but we had forgotten how to cast spells without the ease of the crystal repositories. By the time any of us were able to mount a counter-stroke, it was all lost anyway. We could have fought, but there was no saving our kingdom."_

_She laughed bitterly. "In the end though, it wasn't the Great Spell as you call it, nor was it the barbarians that killed us. It was our single-minded reliance on the magic of the Crystals." She looked up, haunted. "I learned a great lesson that day. A people cannot rely on any one power for their livelihood, or the mistakes that destroyed Kastuul will be repeated. That is why I form these wars. That is why I do these things."_

_Her hands had never stopped playing with the goblet, tipping it back and forth. "I start wars to ensure that no side grows greater. When one side strengthens more," she tipped the glass left, "I weaken it, returning the balance," she tipped the glass right. "If one side grows weak," tipped again, "I give them my aid, giving them the strength to push back," and tipped back. "Because if I did not, if one side ever grew too much stronger..." she didn't bother to tip the glass back. She simply pushed until gravity took over._

_The sound of shattering glass was deafening in the silence._

_How do you refute that? How can you gainsay someone who has seen seven hundred years of empires rise and fall?_

_How could you question the motives of one of the Six Heroes?_

_Alex at least tried. "May I ask you a few questions?"_

_Karla smiled. Finally, she was getting somewhere. She still couldn't understand him, but this would at least give her some insights. "Certainly."_

"_Are you a heavy drinker? Do you regularly inhale the fumes of cleaning solutions, strange incense, burning herbs, that sort of thing? Have you ever imbibed hallucinogenic or psychotropic mushrooms or toadstools? Go through regular psychedelic experiences?"_

_...I suppose that's one way of doing it._

_Alex continued, ignoring the incredulous looks. Well, except for Karla's; he'd never thought he could just outright flabbergast her. "Because that's got to be one of the stupidest justifications I've ever heard. That leads me to three possibilities concerning you, and as I know for a fact that you're not stupid, and am reasonably certain you're not insane, that only leaves one possibility."_

"_Karla, what the hell have you been smoking?"_

_Wow. How do you refute THAT?_

_She tried. We'll give her points for that. "You disbelieve me?"_

_Alex shrugged as he reached for a convenient apple. "I don't think you're lying to us. You saw those things, you believe in your convictions." He was silent for a moment. "Where I come from, there was a man named Adolph Hitler. It's generally agreed that he was possibly the most evil man who ever lived. Do you know what his crime was, his sin?" Taking the silence for an assent, he continued. "He took over a country that was dying, and tried to breathe life back into his homeland. His people had fought and lost a war that they were being forced to pay for, and he gave them back there pride."_

"_What's so evil about that?" Etoh asked._

_Alex was silent for a moment. "The problem was that his solution for bringing their country back to life involved a world-wide war that would have every man woman and child essentially slaves. And in his own country, he gave the orders that had seven million innocents rounded up, shot, and incinerated."_

"_...SEVEN MILLION?"_

_He nodded. "Tell me something, was it a bad thing to try and help his country? No. Was it wrong of him to want to strike back at the people who were bleeding his country to death? No. Was his cause noble? ...I suppose that point could be argued for. Does any of that justify what he did?"_

"_No. Way. In. Hell."_

_Karla was quiet for a moment. "May I assume that you're comparing me to this...Hitler?"_

_Alex shrugged. "To the best of my knowledge, you haven't attempted to commit genocide. So I don't think you're as evil as all that. And I know for a fact that in the past seven hundred years, many of the battles you fought and the people you defended were innocents; you have done good in your life. But this? You expect me to believe that you're keeping Lodoss teetering on the brink of extinction, between one war and the other for eternity for ITS OWN GOOD?"_

_Karla sighed as she rose to leave. "I have lived seven hundred years. This is the only way."_

_Alex snorted in disdain. "Please. You haven't really taken the time, energy or effort to think this through. Hell, if I stood here for one hour, I could come up with better ways of making sure that Lodoss isn't destroyed. The proof that you don't think things through just stood up right before my eyes."_

_Karla frowned. "Proof?"_

"_That body." Alex studiously chose not to look at anyone else staring at him. "You say that you've lived seven hundred years. You have access to the ancient sorcery of Kastuul, of priests and sorcerers. But you haven't precisely 'lived,' have you? That's not the body you wore when you fought the demon in the catacombs below Marmo; that was the corpse they found in Tarba when you stole Leylia, the daughter of one of your 'comrades.' " He shook his head. "I find it somewhat hard to believe that in seven hundred years, you couldn't come up with a spell to keep ONE BODY from aging. And I also find it hard to believe that you could have spent every waking moment protecting Lodoss."_

_Karla managed to keep her composure, but she was the only one who seemed to think so; she looked shaken enough that even Wood could tell. "And what precisely do you think I've been doing the last seven hundred years?"_

_Alex's expression was grim. "The barbarians you hated so much, the ones who destroyed Kastuul, your home...we're what's left of them. The humans of Lodoss, anyway, aren't we?" He sighed. "What a strange coincidence that you've been tricking the descendants of your enemies into killing each other for so many generations."_

(End flashback)

Alex grimaced. Where the hell had that come from? Sure, it was true, but why? What had possessed him to go off like that?

The sad part was that he honestly didn't think that Karla had even considered the implications. For SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS. What kind of trauma could force someone to keep that buried so deeply? He'd been wrong, at least partially; there was an excellent chance of her having been driven insane.

* * *

Concerns and consideration for Karla were temporarily shelved. It's arguable that the war being waged was inevitable. Fahn wanted to unite Lodoss peacefully, and it's quite possible that he had included Marmo in his plans. Beld wanted Lodoss united as well, though the key difference was that he frankly didn't care how it happened; if people swore fealty to him, fine and dandy. If he had to crush them...you know what they say, can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

Still, it was hard to be particularly open-minded when confronted with a scene like this.

Alex might have been inclined to forgive for what could have happened in Myce; they were career soldiers, they knew what they were getting into. But this...this slaughter...

No. There was nothing to justify this.

Etoh stared at the scene of death with a kind of grim awe. Or a grim state of shock, anyway. He knew the writ and dogma, he knew that these souls would be raised to the hands of his gods and goddesses, they would know paradise beyond what the Accursed Land could offer them...but he grieved all the same. Death is a transition to a better place for virtually everyone, but that made their deaths no less tragic. There was no prayer he could offer, no scripture to quote that would change the fact that the last moments of these people's lives had been filled with blood, and pain, and terror.

Alex stared. He'd been lucky in every fight he'd had so far; Zaxom, Myce, Kannon...they'd won and won well enough. He knew intellectually that people would die in this war, but he'd never before been forced to confront the grim reality of it, he'd never seen the wake of a marauding army...never seen hundreds of corpses strewn across a burnt plain.

"God have mercy." An odd choice for a professed agnostic, but some things go beyond what we call ourselves.

Groans reached their ears; they rushed as one to try and drag one of the survivors out of the rubble. Alex scrabbled at his belt desperately, yanking open one of his three pouches of firefly dust. He didn't bother trying to find a wound to dress, he just yanked out a handful of the stuff and blew it over the man. "Hang on!"

...It didn't take.

Chiffon tentatively grasped a shoulder. She started as Deedlit grasped the other beside her, but for once felt no flash of annoyance; this was no place to bicker about something as petty as their rivalry. "Alex..."

"This is wrong."

Deed knelt gracefully to his side, slipping down to grasp one of his hands, bloody in the dust. "I'm sorry."

Alex raked through his hair with his clean hand. "Why apologize to me? They're the ones who died." He glared at the ground. "'Those who lead violent lives do not die natural deaths.' What about these people? Why did they have to die like this?" He started as Deed drew his head to her chest, hugging him gently.

Deed sighed over him. "You fight hard, and you're a smart man, maybe even a wise man. But you can't stop or do everything, no matter what you know." She gently let go, standing. "This is war, Alex. This isn't about one group of soldiers fighting another, this is about dragging one force into the dust and slitting its throat. And killing innocents is just one way of pushing them into the dust." She gestured around sadly. "These men, these women and children, they may not have fought, but there was possible reason to this. Every man dead here is one more that can't join the army and fight back; every farm burned is another soldier who might enter battle weary from hunger. There may be people who don't deserve to die in a war, but there really aren't any who aren't a threat."

Alex stared up at her for a moment. It didn't make him feel better, but at least it kept him from feeling any worse. "It's easy to forget how much more you've seen."

Deed smiled. She could handle this; she'd seen the aftermaths of battles.

Alex started as he felt a rough hand on his shoulder; a male hand. He turned in confusion to find Slayn standing next to Chiffon. "Alex, we'll stay here and do what we can. You need to head east; Fahn needs to know what's happening."

Alex managed a small grin; they were trying to distract him, give him some task to take his mind off the carnage. It wasn't working, but the concern managed to put him back on the road towards cheer. He stood slowly, but paused. "Chiffon?"

"Yes?"

"I want you to stay here."

She stared. "But..."

"You can help Slayn better than anyone here. He'll need your help, and anyone else here who might be able to do something will as well. Please, do this for me?"

She flushed slightly as she felt him clasp her hands. She didn't want to leave him, but if it meant this much... "Alright."

Wood snorted. Ham-handed approach to keeping her out of the battle; he could have come up with something better than that if he'd tried. "I'm not staying here; they'll need me on the battlefield."

"Seeing Ariel again of course has nothing to do with your decision," Deed whispered behind him.

Alex's grin widened. A bit, anyway. You had to be watching pretty hard to notice it, but it widened. He paused. _Next episode...then episode eight..._ "Ghim, I need to talk to you for a second."

The dwarf looked up, grimacing. He'd hoped that no one had seen him. "Make it quick."

Alex frowned. Stooping, he started whispering. "Don't go after her alone. Wait for us to finish this, alright?"

Ghim glared at him. "You fight your battles, I'll fight mine."

Alex glared right back at him. "I want your word you'll wait until the battle is done-"

"Or else what?"

Alex's glare hardened, red flowing into the brown of his eyes. "Or so help me god, I'll kill her when I find her. THAT would certainly stop Karla, wouldn't it?"

Ghim's meaty fist impacting the side of his head hadn't been quite the reaction he'd hoped for.

Fortunately, Ghim hadn't hit him hard enough to knock him down, just hard enough to make the point. "Don't make threats you can't keep, kid."

Alex took a deep breath, eyes closed. When he opened them, he was rewarded to see shock on Ghim's face as blood-red irises met his gray. "You honestly think I won't? I'm halfway insane already, dwarf. Your word."

"Damn it, this is my fight-"

"And this war is mine," Alex snarled under his breath. "I may end up crossing swords with Ashram or even Beld himself, but you know who's responsible for this fight starting in the first place. My quarrel is with Karla. I don't care if you want to save Leylia in the process, but I AM NOT letting you get yourself killed over some idiocy, all right? That's my job."

Ghim stared at him. "'That's my job?' Kid, are you sure you're only half-insane?"

_Where the hell did that come from?_ Alex took a deep breath, settling himself. "Promise me, Ghim."

The dwarf grumbled under his breath. "Fine. I'll wait until I know the battle is over. Fair enough?"

Sensing that any further prods would dissolve into a fistfight (one that he'd lose), Alex accepted it. He paused as he got ready to leave. "Ghim?"

"What?"

Alex sighed. "Listen, you don't need to hurt Leylia to win; Karla's true form is that circlet we all saw. Just get that thing off of her, and you win. Remember that." Not waiting for Ghim's choking demands for explanation, he sprinted away, leaping onto Bucephalus' back and galloping off.

And the only things he heard were the outraged cries of an elf and a thief, demanding he slow down.

* * *

Ashram was troubled.

Had this been the canon universe of Record of the Lodoss War, this would likely not be taking place. But that's kind of the point isn't it? Things were different here.

The slaughters that had been committed...he disapproved. He'd never speak of it, but that didn't change the fact.

He'd been fighting for too long to feel unduly troubled by the deaths, though he frankly didn't see the point. He hadn't wanted to detour for such an insignificant battle, but he'd had his orders. And he was ever an obedient servant.

But...damn it, there had been no purpose beyond sadism in that battle. They were trying to take Lodoss for themselves, to give the people of Marmo a home that wasn't blighted beyond all mortal comprehension, but Marmo wasn't all that big, nor was it too terribly densely populated. There would be no question that the people who called Lodoss their own would remain, and he would have preferred that they remain somewhat docile, resentful but not hostile. Slaughtering that village wasn't the method of a future ruler, it was the method of a murderer.

"Something troubles you, Captain?"

And yes, it was the method of genocidal lunatics who happened to worship certain unnamed goddesses of madness and destruction.

Ashram pointedly ignored the query as he heeled his horse forward; he had to take reports from his scouts anyway.

That was at least part of what was troubling him; there was too little resistance ahead. Villages that had been considered sources of materiel and good sops for the men's anger were found abandoned, cleared out by those who had been very careful to see to it that any food they couldn't carry away had been fouled or already fed to livestock. The kobolds were hunting quite easily enough, but it didn't change the fact that someone was seriously campaigning against his men, for all that they had no army.

It made him wary; the last things they needed were traps and ambushes at this stage in the war. That had been the only real benefit in those insane massacres that Wagnard had coordinated; the men's morale was high.

Wagnard. It would be a lie to say that Ashram was overly fond of the priest. To be blunt, he despised the priest. It may have been said already, but it needs to be repeated. He'd always despised the Red Priest; he may have to tolerate him because of Beld's use of the man, but it didn't mean he did so happily.

But now...

Now there was something different about the priest. There had always been the faith in the Mad One, but there was a light that Ashram recognized in his eyes.

The light of fanaticism.

Something had happened, something that had caused the priest to abandon faith for surety.

Something that could make that man TRUST the Mad One?

Ashram was a bit of a paranoid man. This is perfectly understandable; he's from Marmo after all. Paranoia isn't a vice or a flaw there, it's a survival trait.

Still, sometimes there are circumstances that result in what we would call JUSTIFIED paranoia.

Ashram sighed as he charged his horse, worry disappearing behind a cold mask of professionalism. The Emperor had demanded that the fortress be razed to the ground, and he had a job to do.

* * *

It was something of a relief to return to Roid. Deed had henpecked him for hours shortly after they'd caught up, but thankfully she'd quit after a while. Two days of that would have been torturous.

Unfortunately, Alex was beginning to get the ever-so-slightly-creepy feeling that he might have been right, and the Tenchi Effect might be occurring (1). (Privately, he wondered why they called it that; it happened to a LOT more people than Tenchi Masaki). Because Deed seemed to have decided that the time away from Chiffon would be a great opportunity to turn on her charms.

Alex was absolutely delighted to be back among those that had a sense of propriety strong enough to slow the elf down (Wood apparently didn't count). Granted, she hadn't done anything improper, but hey, getting HUGGED by a curvy, attractive, affectionate woman was enough to put him in a state of nerves; experienced with relationships he was most certainly NOT.

Wood was glad to be back, but mainly because he was on the verge of laughing himself sick.

I mean that. Physically sick.

It hadn't been quite so happy seeing Fahn again; it was frightening just how much the king had aged in the two weeks they'd been gone. Alex would for the rest of his life rank the moment he had to tell Fahn that Karla had been the sixth warrior as one of the most painful in his life.

"Pawns of history..." Fahn sighed. Like most, he was inclined to feel that seven hundred years of experience would make just about anyone right. Well, that and his convictions that what he'd been doing might not have been the best for Lodoss.

"So, you've returned in one piece!"

As he did not particularly idolize Kashue, nor had he been all that chummy with the desert king, Alex hadn't expected much from him. He certainly hadn't expected him to hoist the taller Alex to his feet and clap him on the shoulders.

"YOUR MAJESTY!" Deed snapped. "With all due respect, keep this up and he'll BREAK before he has a chance to get on the battlefield!" Not that she wanted him on the battlefield all that much, but this wasn't something she'd been looking forward to either.

Alex winced. Superhuman ears weren't all that fun when the only things you heard were chuckles and comments about 'hen-pecked.' Though at least it was making Fahn smile a bit.

The king rose effortlessly; he may have looked old, but he certainly didn't move like it. "I have something for you."

Alex stared at the stand of half-plate. Mirror-polished steel breastplate and greaves, shoulder-guards engraved with the cross and the lion...who hasn't ever considered being a knight in shining armor?

Still...

Swallowing a bit, Alex let his hand fall from the armor as he bowed. "Your majesty, you honor me. But I am not a noble, nor do I consider myself particularly chivalrous. I am honored that you would give me this, but I have no right to this armor."

Fahn smiled at the astonished mutters. He'd heard second-hand that Alex had _asked_ that thief friend of his to take all the credit for the rescue of the Kannon royal family. Apparently he'd been right to believe it; he hadn't really expected the man to accept the armor. Though he'd been polite enough to leave out the rather obvious fact that he wouldn't enjoy giving up his autonomy and freedom with the kinds of oaths that a knighthood would require. Still, Fahn felt he owed the man something for saving his daughter.

And he'd actually planned for this eventuality. Though only just.

"Tomorrow we ride into battle together," he intoned solemnly. "Perhaps you do not wish to ride as a knight onto the field, but I would feel better if you had something a bit more substantial than cloth protecting you." He smiled as two attendants wheeled in a far less ornate stand with a set of far less ornate armor.

Alex stared at the armor. _How in the hell did he manage to get a suit of scale mail? I checked; no one else knows about that kind of armor here._ Receiving permission, he stepped forward, tentatively examining the suit. It was all one piece of armor; circular scales a bit smaller than the palm of his hand, overlapping in a pattern that resembled the depiction of waves in some oriental prints. It had been sown onto what looked like canvas; it had the consistency of a denim shirt. The armor covered the torso closely, with half sleeves protecting shoulder and bicep, a split skirt of scale that would fall just past his knees.

More importantly, it wasn't an invitation; this was solely a gift. "Where did this come from?"

Fahn smiled. "I know that the Knights of Moss have had this for quite some time, though no one has ever chosen to wear it. I asked Prince Jester if I might offer it to you. According to what the scholars of Moss have managed to find, it was believed to have been forged in the age of Kastuul, though by dwarves. Skill made this armor, not magic."

Alex bowed. "Your majesty, I would be honored to accept this gift from you." Slipping it from the stand, he started; it weighed maybe a third of what he'd expected. _What the hell? This stuff is lighter than titanium._ He suppressed a grimace. _Tomorrow. Hope I have time to get used to wearing this stuff in less than 24 hours._

There wasn't much more for him to do; he slipped the armor on over his loose pants and shirt, pleased and somewhat surprised that it fit comfortably; he wouldn't need to take it to an armor smith for any last-minute adjustments. It also provided decent range of motion; this was armor he could use. And thankfully, it was armor that Bucephalus would tolerate.

Having completed his mission and dutifully accepted his royal gift, the three of them were more or less shuffled neatly out of the way so that Kashue could make his standard heroic proclamations; I will not fail, the Marmo will be crushed, glory and honor to all warriors of the alliance...you get the idea. Thankful to be out of the public eye, Alex retired to one of the parapets, watching idly as Kashue's forward guard rode off.

Alex had always had bad eyesight; it was only following his journey to Lodoss that he'd finally gotten past that. And as is fairly typical for people with a deficiency in one sense, he'd gained superiority with another; namely, he'd always had great hearing, a sense that had improved even further along with his eyesight.

His hearing was quite sensitive enough to catch the 'slipping' sound of air being displaced by the passage of a knife through it.

Achiya had enhanced and rebuilt his physique quite a bit as well; he wasn't all that muscular or impressive, but he WAS fast enough to dodge the projectile.

Though it probably helped that Wood wasn't trying to seriously hit or injure him

Deedlit glared at the thief. "What do you think you're doing? Don't you think we have enough to worry about without your stupid jokes?"

Wood smirked at her. "Smile, smile! You'll get wrinkles if you keep this up."

Alex stepped forward quickly, partially because he was annoyed with himself for forgetting this little exchange, but mostly in the hopes that if Deed decided to stab the thief, she'd hesitate to stab him by putting her sword through Alex's new armor. "I'm going to assume for a moment there was a point to that. Care to enlighten me?"

Wood sighed theatrically. "You know, you're tough, but you're still young. And just because you're pretty good at hiding it, doesn't change the fact that you're still hurting over what you saw in that village." His humor subsided. "Fact is, you're going to go into battle, maybe tomorrow or the day after. You ready to kill a lot of people? Think you can do it, even remembering that massacre?"

Alex's face softened. The fact was that he didn't know what was going to happen. "I can try, I guess." He sighed. "What worries me more than that is the fact that I'm not just risking my life; that's bad enough though, I guess. It's not even the possibility of killing other people. You know what really gets to me?" He sighed again. "The part I hate is that I'm going to have to send people to their deaths." He paused, a sinister grin crossing his face, a grin made all the creepier for what it had just supplanted. "And a good afternoon to you, Ariel."

It was almost worth it. It was definitely worth putting up with Wood for that moment as absolute PANIC shot across his face. Spinning, he managed to paste a smile on his face at the sight of the princess. "Ah..."

Deedlit fought back a giggle as she watched Wood back into the wall, clearly out of his element. Still, her smile faded a bit as she watched Alex walk away. He was smiling, but she knew he was still hurting.

It made her ache, seeing him try to bottle everything up. That conversation weeks past, where he'd mentioned how much experience he had in bottling up emotions...it made her hurt all the more. How much pain did he feel that she simply couldn't see?

She sighed. He kept inspiring all sorts of contradicting emotions in her; she couldn't decide if she wanted to just melt into his arms or protect him, usually in the same day.

He was driving her crazy.

* * *

Lars was NOT having a fun time.

You may recall him from Chapter Three of this story; the idiot Marmo soldier with a scar across his nose and a somewhat unhealthy obsession with the females of everyone else's species. To be fair, he had good reason; on Marmo, there are essentially two types of women. The sheltered toys of the aristocracy (or whoever was powerful enough to keep them), and the women who were several times more vicious and brutal than the men. Hey, what can I say? Marmo was just that kind of place. Unlike most though, this particular idiot had never figured out that ALL the females of Marmo fell more or less into this category; he was under the mistaken impression that elves (among other things) would be more open to his 'charms.'

He also suspected that the females of the goblin, kobold, dwarf, and ogre race would be, but had yet to try (goblins weren't all that attractive, the one kobold he'd approached (he'd been REALLY drunk) had tried to neuter him, he'd never met a female dwarf, and as for ogres...how the hell were you supposed to bed something that would crush you in an embrace? As in, shattered ribcage, not metaphorically speaking).

As such, pleasantly buzzed from a clay jug of some form of alcohol (I think the operative term was 'rotgut'), he was in a generally receptive mood.

Rounding the campfire, he paused, somehow tuning out the drunken laughter of goblins dancing as he found a dark elf. Pretty damn sexy dark elf, at that.

Elves were never tall, at least compared to humans. She stood maybe five foot four though, which made her fairly tall for a drow. Skin just a shade paler than milk chocolate contrasted nicely with her pale garments, garments of a color that couldn't quite decide if it was white, gray, or lavender. It was odd; she was technically wearing a great deal. There was very little skin revealed on her body, at least below the neck. Yet somehow, they'd managed to create something that showed off JUST the right parts to make the most impact without actually being lewd.

It helped of course that most of the clothing was skin-tight.

Grinning lecherously, he prepared to make his move.

Among the handful of civility in the camp was Beld's tent. A tough old barbarian he may have been, but he was a barbarian with a certain degree of standards.

Ashram stood before a map commandeered from one of the outposts they'd raided; the defenders had kept much better records than the invaders. "Scout reports have warned us that a fore guard has left Roid; heavy horse with some heavy infantry, under the direct command of Kashue." There was a certain grudging respect in his voice for the mercenary king; there were entirely too many similarities between Beld and Kashue, and their respective rises to power. A dagger 'thunked' into the wood of the table; it was forever a mystery how Ashram could throw knives and such around without ever seeming to move his arms. "We'll probably meet somewhere around here." It was not simply the work of calculating foot speed over terrain; it was the best place for a decisive battle. A large, shallow, dish-shaped valley with short hills surrounding the perimeter, it would provide cover along virtually any front.

Beld frowned. Cutting a path through Kannon was nothing to be proud about; the soldiers of the country were pathetic compared to even his goblins. The men of Valis hadn't been able to mount any serious defenses, nor had they managed to inflict any serious damage to his forces. He knew enough though to recognize that it had been luck and numbers to account for that; it was not that Valisians couldn't fight, it was simply that they'd been overwhelmed before anything could be accomplished. Against the full might of Valis and Flaim however... "Ashram, take your army and the dark elf forces. Bring them to the mountains on either side of the pass into the valley, and await my signal. My forces will be the anvil; yours will be the hammer." He misinterpreted the frown on Ashram's face. "Don't consider our losses until now as sacrifices," he said. He knew Ashram valued the lives of his men, and approved; the man could get virtually anyone to fight their hardest for him. Even better, he fought even harder for Beld's sake. "They're a shield, meant to protect the people of Marmo. As you may be, should you fall."

Ashram smiled. "Just as you may be as well, your majesty."

Beld howled with laughter; no one, not Karla or even Wagnard himself would dare to speak to him with such familiarity. Again, he approved.

Further talk was curtailed as meaty thuds reached their ears. Sighing internally, Ashram left; he made it a point of dealing with the happenings of the camp personally. And while he might want his men in good spirits, the last thing he needed was bad blood. Enemies killing his men he might tolerate; from his own men...that was a different story entirely.

Lars impacted the hard-packed earth gracelessly, sprawling out with all the poise of a dying duck. "Son of a bitch..."

Some sharp-featured dark elf sneered down at him. Living as virtually slaves in a matriarchal society, the men of the dark elf race took every opportunity to talk down to humans; talking down to another dark elf usually got you killed. "The Lady Pirotess is one of the greatest of all the dark elf women. She is not the sort to...consort with the likes of you."

Fueled equally by booze and adrenaline, Lars staggered to his feet. "You sayin' I ain't worthy?"

He smirked. "You think yourself _superior_?"

Broadsword cleared its sheath as alcohol-fueled rage one-upped his rather wimpy survival instinct. "Y-y-you son of a bitch!"

The elf grinned, sighing theatrically as he spun out of range of the wild swings. Credit where credit is due; Lars was a competent swordsman, though that doesn't mean he had any chance whatsoever.

Still, the elf was charitable; killing him outright would cause trouble. Side-stepping a particularly vicious slash, he calmly and delicately planted his foot in the man's backside and shoved.

Lars spun as he got up, the howls of laughter in mixed tongues reaching his ears. "Fucking point-earred sonofa..."

_That's quite enough of that_. Drawing his rapier, the elf charged, binding the man's blade easily and flinging it aside.

Lars swallowed nervously as his knees gave out. Whimpering, he turned his head to the side, the last thing he'd been expecting to hear being a reprieve.

Squeezing one eye open, he shot to his feet, Ashram's stance with a dagger in one hand a clear block. "Captain!" Turning to the elf, he did his best to match his earlier sneer. "Think you're better than humans, huh?"

Not even bothering to look, Ashram calmly rammed the pommel of the dagger into the man's jaw, sending him flying. Never taking his eyes off the elf, he spoke only once. "We have enough to deal with. Save your sneers for Valis."

Pirotess arched an eyebrow, ignoring the man's profuse apologies. _Interesting_. She watched as the Black Knight stalk away. It was decidedly odd, she decided, seeing a male of any species capable of inspiring fear in her.

She liked it a bit, to tell the truth.

* * *

Alex frowned as he approached the throne room. Fahn had summoned him, and well...you don't' keep a king waiting. Still, he couldn't really figure out what the king would want him for; he was supposed to tell Parn the story of Tessius now...

Alex winced as Parn stumbled past, shock written clearly on his face. _Okay, that takes care of that. Still doesn't explain what he wants from me_. Shrugging, he entered without knocking. "You needed to speak with me, your majesty?"

He was surprised to see the king; he seemed more relieved than old tonight. _Idiot, he just unloaded his sins. Of course he'd feel like there's less of a burden._

Fahn simply gestured for the young man to stand at his side. "A beautiful sky, isn't it?" Alex just nodded as he joined the king at the balcony. Fahn was silent for a time as he looked into the stars, the moon. "I might die tomorrow."

Alex started. "Your majesty?"

Fahn turned to him, and the sight chilled Alex; this was not a man who feared dying, this was a man who'd made his peace with it. "When the battle is joined, I will be at considerable risk. It will hardly be the first time. Still, I don't believe that the gods will let me die without facing Beld one last time. And to be perfectly honest, I don't think that's a fight I can win."

Alex shifted uneasily. He knew that Fahn was supposed to die. Still, Jebra had been supposed to die to. So had King Kannon, if you wanted to get technical. "Perhaps. Still, if I have anything to say in this, you'll live."

Fahn smiled. "I've heard it said that you have an uncanny knowledge of future events." He turned to young hero (Alex suppressed a shiver, though he couldn't quite figure out why). "I wont' ask how you know, but I would like to ask you one thing."

"Will Fiana be alright without me?"

Alex stared at him. "What?" Fahn simply gazed back at him. Sighing, Alex shook his head. "How can I answer that?"

"Please."

"...If you're asking if she'll live, then the answer is yes. At least as far as I know. As for her welfare..." he sighed. "What child is ever better off with the death of their father?"

Fahn was silent for a moment. "I'll have to die someday, though I would have preferred to see more. Still, when you reach my age, you start to look for it with almost...hope. I've seen too much, done too many things, fought too many wars. It's strange, but humans are the only animals that linger; any other animal would have died long ago if he'd tried to fight old age as long as I have."

"...If you say so. Though it's usually the old ones who are the most dangerous; they know how to fight to survive."

Fahn smiled as he drew away from the balcony, drew towards his armor stand. As though seizing an old friend's hand, he grasped the sheathed Holy Sword. Walking back to the balcony, he stood in front of a by-now bewildered Alex. Silently, he extended it, hilt-first.

Slowly, Alex's jaw dropped. After almost a full minute of silence, in which it became clear that Fahn wasn't joking, Alex managed to speak. "Your majesty, I don't feel like I have a right to the armor of one of your knights, and with all due respect, that's just steel."

Fahn snorted. "Fool boy, I'm not giving you this sword. I just want you to draw it."

Flushed _ever-so-slightly_ by his presumption, Alex reverentially touched the hilt.

And nearly dropped to his knees.

Fahn gazed on the boy carefully as he caught himself. Steeling himself, he wrapped his hand around the carved ivory hilt. Wincing, he forced himself onward, drawing the sword completely free. Fahn felt his breath catch as he watched light pour from the blade; it was not bright, was not blinding. It had always struck him that it looked like the moonlight glowing; it was light in darkness, not simply light. Carefully grasping the hilt below Alex's hand, Fahn took the blade. "It's not a comfortable thing to wield; I get the feeling more than once that there's some sort of soul all in itself in this blade, and IT decides whether to let you wield it or not."

Alex nodded dumbly; he felt like someone had just shot acid through his veins. No, not acid; burning oil.

Fahn carefully sheathed the blade. "You felt the trembling, saw the light? It reacts to Beld."

"The demon sword..."

Fahn shook his head. "Soul Crusher has only existed for thirty years, and the Holy Sword is ageless. There's no reason for any link between the two, unless Beld was destined to bathe a sword in demon's blood. No, this is all that remains of the link between me and the demon slayer." He regarded the blade for a moment, than drew himself up regally. "Alex Latrans, known to many as the Knight of the Coyote, I charge you with this duty. Should I fall in battle, this blade, which you alone have drawn, is to be your responsibility. If you do not wish to wield it, that is your prerogative. However, should that be the case, it will be your responsibility to see the blade safely to either the Temple of Pharis in Alan, or to the Holy Knights in Roid."

Alex stared at him. It was odd and slightly worrisome, but it felt like the blade had made some kind of link between him and Fahn. And he was loathe to refuse. Still... "Your majesty-"

"Call me Fahn."

"...Fahn, I have no intention of wielding that sword if I don't have to. I am not a follower of Pharis. To be perfectly honest, I could just as easily see myself wielding Soul Crusher."

Fahn shrugged as he replaced the sword on his armor stand. "And you think it impossible that Beld might have wielded this sword?" He shook his head. "The swords don't really care about philosophy, or sides, or even religious allegiance. All that matters to them is that their wielder knows what he's doing, and has strong enough convictions of some sort that he'll use them. If Beld falls, I imagine that it would be Ashram who takes up Soul Crusher. Do you really find it so hard to imagine Ashram with the Holy Sword?"

He paused, having replaced the sword. "Alex...something you should know. Pharis is not necessarily a god of Good, anymore than Falaris is a god of Evil. Soul Crusher did not make Beld evil anymore than this sword has made me good. What will determine how you fight, how you wield one of the Opposing Swords, is what's inside. And in you, I see a determination. But a hopeless one."

* * *

Something that is not really understood about the gods is that they aren't really one great amalgous mass with many different aspects; just because Zeus and Amon were both kings of their respective pantheons doesn't mean that they're just one being with different disguises.

Kardis was the goddess of madness and destruction. If you were a gamer (which Alex was not (2)), you'd equate her with the Chaotic Evil alignment; her portfolio was to cause pain, suffering, and generally increased entropy and to do it along lines that most people really couldn't figure out. As goddesses go though, she wasn't really all that powerful. Granted, that's like saying a 50 kiloton nuclear weapon isn't that powerful because there are megaton nukes. Still, the fact remains that she'd lost to Marfa (who was of a relatively equal power level), and had been put in the divine equivalent of time-out while the modicum of power she still retained (which really WAS tiny, even by mortal standards) sought out someone who could get her the hell out of here.

The problem was that while there were plenty of people who she could influence, there weren't all that many who could and would then turn around and do something useful for her cause. Most who would follow her were simply destructive and didn't care; she needed someone with both power and intelligence to do her bidding.

Wagnard had been a godsend. Diabolically intelligent, he was a true nihilist; he didn't seek destruction so much as believe it to be fore-ordained by the natural order of the world. He saw no point or purpose in life or existence, and the only reason he hadn't commit suicide was because he intended to see the rest of the world preceded him into oblivion. Manipulating him was simple and effective, because he had the political power, the command of the people around him to a degree that meant he could gain what SHE needed.

His plans were noted with the same attention as a parent's when a child announces they are going to run away to another planet.

Though not many parents plan to have their 'children' killed out of hand.

* * *

In the canon Record of the Lodoss War, this would be the part where Deed skipped across the battlements of Roid to serenade Parn as he brooded over the fact that his dad really hadn't been a disgrace to the Holy Knights. As this is not the canon, something slightly different is going on.

Granted, Parn had been brooding about his dad, but in this version he had a relationship with Shiris, and she had ways of snapping him out of a blue funk. Ways that go beyond even an R-rating and will be mentioned in this fic. So there.

Alex though...

Deedlit smiled as she sighted the young man, standing on one of the towers set at the corner of the walls of Fahn's castle. True to the original, she skipped lightly across the battlements, a picture of grace over stones notched to accept arrow and lance, a six-string lute slung across her back. Either not sensing the somewhat dark mood he was in or just plain not caring, she flung herself at him, lightly clasping his neck as she easily swung around into his arms. "Found you. I was wondering what kept you."

Brooding had given way to alarm at the feeling of someone's arms around his neck. Alarm had almost instantly given way to embarrassment as he realized that he recognized that soft, warm pressure on his back (he was just wearing a linen tunic and trews; unlike Parn he didn't see the point in going around in nothing but armor all day). Then, somehow without upsetting his balance, she...well, floated into his arms. Whatever he'd meant to say had proceeded to crawl back down his throat and start choking him when he saw the look on her face. Green eyes like smoky emerald, skin like downy snow on alabaster...

Swallowing, he managed to disentangle her from him, though not without earning a few pouts that held no actual malice. Grinning, she hopped easily onto one of the stones of the wall, seated easily as she begun plucking a delicate, half-mournful song from her guitar. Alex watched her play for a moment, just enjoying the sight of her. She knew the instrument completely by feel; there was no reason or need for her to see the strings she plucked, no use for watching where her left hand moved as she chorded. She simply say, and smiled, and played her song.

"I just spoke to Fahn," Alex mentioned. He was a bit surprised that Deed did nothing more than make an agreeable noise. Still, he wanted to talk. "Apparently, he trusts me with Holy Sword."

Deed opened her eyes as she played now, her smile warm rather than impish now. "I can understand that; I doubt you'd be able to bring yourself to use it if you wanted to."

Alex laughed. "I told him that, and he seemed to agree. I have been making an impression, haven't I?" He turned sober. He didn't really want to destroy the mood, but he needed to get it out there. "He said something else to me. He said, 'there is great determination in your eyes. But no hope.'" He shook his head. "What do you make of that?"

Deed paused for a moment, but only just. She picked up her spot in her song easily as she allowed a smile. "I know what he means. You have this powerful conviction, this desire to see things through, but you don't have any ambition, any personal desires."

Alex nodded silently in thought, more as something to do than for any agreement. "Wouldn't that be a good thing?"

She shook her head. "You need to have some ambition, some desire; it's unhealthy to be selfless. Everyone has to have something they want, something they're willing to strive for. You need a reason to keep on going."

"Don't I have one?"

"Not really. You fight because you think it's the right thing to do. You're in this war because you think you should be, not because you want to. I think you'd die in this battle if you thought you should. Which is absolutely stupid."

Alex couldn't really think of a rebutal to that. Instead, he turned to watch the night sky. "You know, in the original story for all of this, in The Record of the Lodoss War, this is the part where I'm supposed to ask you to stay out of the battle." He smiled as the music paused. "Will you?"

She was silent for a moment. "Do I?"

He grinned as he turned to her. "That's not what I'm asking. I want to know, will you stay out of the battle tomorrow, or whenever it ends up being?"

"No."

Laughing, he slid down the parapets to a sitting position. "I didn't think you would." He watched as her glare dissolved into a rueful smile.

Deed shook her head as she set the chords for her song. "Just so you know, I think I prefer it when you don't tell me anything. So please, stop talking about what was supposed to happen in your story."

Alex nodded as he watched her play for another few minutes. It was a beautiful, mournful song. Still, it reminded him of something he'd heard once. As it came to a close, he rose, striding over to sit next to her. "Deed, have you ever heard of a song called Sasurai (1)? Or a song called something that means 'the wanderer'?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. Do you know how it goes?" She'd expected humming, maybe singing or whistling. She didn't expect him to reach out for the guitar. "I didn't know you could play the guitar."

Alex shrugged as he checked the strings, grateful that there were frets on this style of lute. He shuddered to imagine the dischord he'd make if he tried to play it by instinct. "I can't, not really. My youngest sister...well, actually my oldest sister bought a guitar, and then didn't really play it. Then my youngest sister dug it out and I got a little bit interested. Anyway, I heard this song once, and I liked it enough to try to figure out how to play it."

"Did you?"

Alex grinned sheepishly. "I remember the first measure." Self-consciously setting his fingers, he gently strummed the opening bars; less than ten seconds in, he stopped his tentative plucking and strumming. "It begins like that, but I never managed to figure it out well enough to play it beyond this point."

Wordlessly, Deed retrieved the guitar. Setting it over her lap, she effortlessly strummed out the tune, going far past the point that Alex knew. Less than a minute into the song though, she let it trail off. "...that's a very old song." Looking up at Alex, she wondered for a moment if he knew he'd asked her to play a love song. "The elvish for it means The Wild Geese though, not the Wanderer."

Alex shrugged. "There were never any words to it, and the one I found wasn't exactly in the best condition." He paused, but this wasn't much. And this was someone who could do it properly. "Could you teach me how to play that?"

Deed smiled, but sadly. It may have been a love song, but it was a tragic love. Still, it was a beautiful song, and he didn't have to know. She began showing him how to properly set his fingers, how to transition from the deft, complex finger-picking into the chords, but it was hard with him watching her from the front; he'd have to flip everything he saw. Seized by a rather impish impulse, she stopped. "Sit down." Alex's eyes narrowed a bit in confusion, but he did so. Not giving him the time he'd need to suspect anything, she plunked herself into his lap. "That's better. Now watch carefully."

Biting back a strangled yelp, Alex managed not to spill her out of his lap, but more because he froze than any other reason. He let out a sigh of relief as she went straight into teaching him how to play the song in a business-like matter. She at least wasn't doing this to embarass him. Though having a gorgeous young woman sitting in that...position was not the most soothing thing in the world. Still, she was going to be innocent about this, so he would to.

Assuming he could get his body under control enough to keep from embarassing himself.

Of course, if he'd seen the flush on Deed's face, he might have questioned the 'innocence' of their position.

Still, it was not a bad end to the day, and certainly not a bad way to prepare for the battle to come, a battle that could very well see his death, or the deaths of close to a thousand men under his command.

To be continued...

Author's Notes: Actually, the conversation and explanation of WHY Karla is doing this occurred in the original manga of Record of the Lodoss War. But hey, I need to hit Alex with something unexpected slightly larger than a random enchanted weapon every once in a while. Next chapter probably won't be posted for awhile, as I want to take the time and effort to write the battle scenes properly.

(1) - Thanks to Travis Grant for that term.

(2) - It's not that I have anything against gamers or RPG's, it's just that I never had the patience to make a character, nor the large number of nerds necessary to play it. I just skim through the sourcebooks because it's interesting to see what they come up with.

(3) - In Slayers TRY, this is the song that Zelgadis is playing on the guitar, in that episode where he, Lina, and Filia end up on some kind of ghost ship. If you don't have the series, I do have an MP3 version of the song. Just in case anyone's curious.


	8. Chapter 7: And the Battle was Joined

Chronicles of Murphy

Book of the Accursed

_**Chapter Seven**_

And the Battle was Joined

"Quit worrying," Ghim rumbled as he continued. Etoh had divine aid, Slayn had magic, even Chiffon had herbology...he had squat. Dwarves don't really go into healing, you have to understand. They hold it in no contempt, they just can't ever seem to get the hang of a bedside manner. Heck, it was that lack of a healer's touch that had brought Ghim into this mess in the first place; a dwarf healer might have meant he'd never met either Neese or Leylia. Anyway, just because he couldn't heal anyone didn't mean they were letting him sit idle; he was stuck with the manual labor. Namely, cutting sheets into bandages, keeping fires stoked, and...washing.

He silently swore that if any of the three mentioned this in the presence of other dwarves, he'd find someway to kill them quietly.

Chiffon started at the rough voice. "I...I'm sorry. I was just..."

"Just thinking about Alex again." Ghim shook his head. "Kid, cut it out. Quit worrying so much, or you'll give yourself wrinkles."

She flushed a bit. It wasn't as though she tried to hide that she liked Alex, but it was still embarrassing to hear him so blunt about it. "I know he can take care of himself, but..." she sighed. "It's hard not to." She started as she felt a bundle of cloth striking her in the chest; instinctively she grabbed it. "What?"

"Cut those into bandages." He shrugged as he sat on what had once been a house's support beam. "You look like you need to get something off your chest, and that'll probably take a while. No point in just sitting around." His own hands had never stopped as he continued ripping apart cloth; the hands of a dwarf are always moving, if nothing else is. They cannot allow the world to go unshaped; it's in their blood. "So why worry? You said he's good. Hell of a lot better than he has any business to be, right weapon or not."

Chiffon looked at him curiously. "The right weapon?"

"Don't stop cutting," Ghim grumbled. "I don't usually make weapons; pots and pans, jewelry, tools...stuff people can use all the time. So I don't really have all that good an idea of what one person might feel best using in a fight, or what won't work. I'm a dwarf; dwarves like axes."

"Why is that, anyway?" Chiffon asked. "I've never seen or heard of a dwarf using a sword or spear; it's always an axe or a hammer; maybe a halberd for priests, but that's it."

"Versatility," Ghim replied. "Sure it's a good weapon, but we originally carried around hammers and axes because they're tools. Anyway, I made Alex an axe a while ago, but he never really got the hang of it. Oh, he could fight with it well enough, but not as well as he should have." He sighed. "Then he shows up with that weird-looking spear, and next thing you know he's some kind of goddamned force of nature." He shook his head. "Anyway, why bother worrying? I mean come on; you weren't there to see it, but I once watched him kill an ogre, get crushed under it, then crawl out from under and start fighting with its own scythe. I don't think I've EVER met someone with such a stubborn survival instinct in my life..." he groaned. "Oh. Her." The combination of flush and clenched teeth was all he needed to see. "He's not gonna bed the other elf, so quit worrying about that." He paused for a moment as he looked up at her from his work. "What is it with you and her, anyway?"

"That slut's trying to steal Alex!"

Ghim stared at her, and broke out laughing. Wiping tears away from his eyes, he shook his head. "_That slut?_ I don't think I've ever heard you curse before; Alex would be proud. No, I mean it," he hastened to add as her face scrunched up. "Maybe not with you calling Deed a slut, but he'd certainly be happy that you're starting to show some spunk." Seeing that his reassurances weren't taking effect as well as he'd hoped, he sighed. "Kid, I'm going to break one of those unofficial rules here and tell you a little truth about guys. Not dwarves, not humans, or elves; just guys in general. You women are always bouncing all over the place with your moods, so you might not understand this, but guys generally don't do things by half. Alex hasn't slept with Deed yet, so he probably won't. Ever."

Chiffon stared at him. "How can you say that? You...you don't think he's..."

"Playing for the other side?" Ghim shook his head. "Nah, he's straight. But think back to that ball; you remember how all those girls were throwing themselves at the new 'hero?'" Chiffon nodded. "He didn't take them up on that, even though he probably could have gotten away with it. Oh come on," he scoffed at her look. "He managed to sneak the royal family out of Kannon. You think it would have been all that hard for him to sneak some little bit of fluff away for an hour?"

Chiffon digested that for silence in a moment as they continued. "So why won't he sleep with Deedlit?" she finally asked. "Just because he didn't want any of them doesn't mean he doesn't want her."

Ghim sighed. "Kid, something you have to understand. There are only a few reasons why a guy would turn down an attractive woman. One, he can't get it up. Somehow I don't see that happening. Two, he only goes for guys. Also unlikely. Three, he's somehow threatened. Possible with the fluff, but not with Deed. That only leaves one option; he's that rarest of men."

"What kind of man?"

Ghim smiled a bit at her eagerness; he kind of liked the attention. And she needed some kind of father figure; damned if he could figure out how he'd gotten elected to the position. "A gentleman. The thing about guys, and this is another unwritten no-no, is that we ARE ALWAYS thinking about sex." He shrugged. "As I understand it, you'd be considered pretty fine-looking by human or elf standards. So with a gentleman, a guy like Alex, it's not that he isn't thinking at one point or another about what you'd be like, it's just that he doesn't act on it."

Chiffon digested that in silence again. It made sense, in an odd, gruff sort of way. She smiled a bit. "You said by human or elf standards." Leaning back, he slipped her hands behind her neck and fluffed her hair out backwards, the motion 'casually' thrusting her chest outward. "Don't you find me attractive?" she asked with a mock pout.

"Hell no," Ghim replied. "No offense kid, but I don't understand how the hell you gangly people can find _each other_ attractive. I prefer my women with a figure that'll hold out against a cave-in; someone I can trust to still be alive when I get home."

Chiffon giggled a bit; there'd been no bite in his speech; besides, she didn't understand how anyone could be attracted to someone who looked like he'd been built out of a boulder. She paused as she noticed Etoh staring at her; he spun, red-faced when he noticed she was watching. She giggled again. "Etoh seems to be a gentleman; I doubt he spends all his time thinking about _that_."

"Priests don't count."

* * *

Kashue was not happy. First this damned fog had come up, and next thing his own advance party (or at least their corpses) had turned around and begun attacking him. They were too small to do any serious damage to his forces, but it had shaken his men seriously, which was almost as bad. Now a force of Marmo infantry that outnumbered his band by almost three-to-one had turned up, surrounded him, and was now in the process of trying to exterminate him. 

No, this was not a good day. By any possible standards.

Still, if there was one thing that Kashue knew how to do, it was fight. Flaim as a region had been around for centuries, but as a nation they were much like the Arabians; warring tribes that had only recently united into a true nation. As a child, Kashue had joined a mercenary company; he'd first seen combat at age nine, helping defend the camp from a raid. He'd started learning sword work before he was in his teens; he'd fought in his first real battle when he was no more than fourteen; three years later, he was leading companies of men into battle. He was barely into his twenties when he had been declared leader of the mercenary troop, and begun the campaign that would eventually change him from respected mercenary (honest fighters were always honored) to king.

The fact that he was handsome was all the more impressive; being good-looking had nothing to do with fighting skill. STAYING good-looking through as much combat as he had, without so much as a visible or facial scar, required that not only was he good, but that he was lucky enough to get healing attention in time. Skill is a godsend for a warrior, luck only slightly less. Together?

As it has been said, Kashue knew how to fight.

He heeled his horse around, charging into another knot of goblins. He had no need to worry for his mount; most knights died not because of any lack of skill, but rather when they were crushed under the weight of their own horses. Kashue's stallion (he refused to ride a gelding into battle; only a full stallion had the raw fighting spirit) was an older horse, and had fought goblins before. It bore only two scars, but it had learned the lesson; goblins liked killing horses.

In point of fact, more goblins had probably died under Sirocco's hooves than Kashue's sword.

Roaring battle cries, a knot of Kashue's cavalry charged for their king, determined that if they had to die here, their king at least would have a chance to escape.

Kashue pulled his horse free of the tangle of battle, springing clear suddenly as the riders of his approaching guard spun, turning to strike a massed charge into the main ranks of fighters.

Oh yes. Kashue knew how to fight.

Even a battle he couldn't win alone.

* * *

Not more than five miles away, clouds of dust in the sky marked clearly the path of the allied forces on their march. Alanian foot had been slow to come, but once it had become clear that the war would be fought not on his homeland but in the south of his allies, Kadamos had grudgingly sent in larger reserves. Kannon's fighters were largely held up in guerrilla actions against the Marmo advance, sniping at fighters, destroying supply trains, and running peasants out of the war machine's path. Regulars from King Kannon had only come lately, and few of them at that. Between the two, there were perhaps three thousand infantry, supported by a motley band of fifty of Kannon's surviving horseman and almost four hundred from Alan. 

The bulk of the Allied Forces came from Valis and Flaim; over twenty thousand men all told, nearly a third mounted. Perhaps a quarter of the infantry, and over half the cavalry had been sent with Kashue on his advance party. Still, it left over ten thousand on foot, perhaps three thousand cavalry remaining.

It was an awe-inspiring sight; a massive column of heavy horse thirty ranks wide and fifty ranks deep, an equal-sized company of light horse right behind. Drawn in tighter ranks behind came the infantry; scattered archers in the rear, with chain-mail clad spearmen in tight ranks behind the horse. Sword-and-buckler men made the bulk of the army, most wearing half-plate or brigandine armor, skirmishers armed with light swords, or great hulking brutes with war hammers or double-headed battle axes slung over their shoulders.

To the side of the road, a stand-alone army entirely, stood Alex's Coyotes.

_His_ army. He could have wept.

Men had come to join up while he'd been running errands in Moss; he now had over twelve hundred men under his command; two hundred fifty horse, and nearly a thousand infantry. He'd been furious when he'd found the newly arrived men, though largely because he'd had the men and not the time to build a second phalanx. Still, he had to admit that it was worth it.

He grinned a bit as he looked them over. Forced responsibilities or not, he had to admit that there was a sense of pride from having these men under his command. Between that and their startling appearance in the bronze scale mail, he expected a rather...odd welcoming. Truth be told, it had turned out better than he'd hoped; they looked like dragons marching into battle.

The scale mail he'd had made for his warriors was a particular point of pride. As noted in an earlier chapter, he'd expected to have to do without any steel or iron workers for his forces. It had been his idea to hunt down bell-smiths and other men who worked in bronze, and commission them to set up molds designed for casting individual bronze scales. Finding a sack-maker and having him set up shop for sewing rough, strong shirts that the scales could be sewn onto had been even easier. Partly it was the continued Greek motif that he seemed to be cultivating, partly expedience. Still, he had to admit that they were intimidating as hell.

Unlike the rest of the allies, he'd set the phalanx in the front in a wide half-rank; twenty four men wide and eight deep, twenty-foot pikes held high, ready to drop at a moment's notice. He'd deployed half light cavalry behind them; he didn't expect an ambush, but he figured that if worse came to worse, his phalanx could pivot to absorb a charge, giving the light horse the cover they'd need to deploy and begin harassing the enemy. Behind the light horse were his long-range fighters; peltasts, slingers, and archers; 250 men devoted to killing people before they were close enough to do the same. The skirmishers were next, set to defend and shield his shooters, with one hundred and sixty heavy horse bringing up the rear.

Wood looked around, shrugging uncomfortably in his armor. He was wearing a hauberk of chain mail made from drawn wire underneath a long leather coat; it would turn sword blades and potentially stop arrows without adding too much weight. It wouldn't do any good against the bruising from the blows, but he steadfastly refused to wear plate armor; it would be hard enough knife-fighting like this. "How the hell did you manage to convince me to help you lead this bunch of lunatics?"

Alex shrugged, looking around, waiting for the news for deployment. He'd worked out the basics of his battle plan ahead of time, but he'd need to modify it when he got a good idea of the particulars. "I think it was when we pointed out that if you tried fighting anywhere else you'd end up covered in plate, decked out like a great big sign screaming 'KILL THIS ONE FIRST.'" Alex smiled a bit. Sure, Wood might not have wanted to lead anyone, but he had no doubts the thief had been planning to fight alongside him. It was touching, really.

Still, he had to keep his mind on the battle. In the Second Punic Wars, Hannibal had won a battle in what was possibly one of the most brutal, bloody, complete slaughters in recorded history. Taking forty thousand of his Carthaginians against almost twice as many Romans, he'd managed to draw them in and surround them; sixty thousand Romans had been killed by the end of the day. Thus was born the legendary Double Encirclement of Cannae, the decisive battle that _should_ have won the Second Punic Wars for Carthage.

That was going to happen again today. The only problem was that Alex's side was going to be set up like the losers; encircled and trapped. He had to figure a way out of it. He had an idea, but...he was worried.

Wood looked around. "I'm not sure it's a good idea to keep these guys apart. We'd be safer inside the ranks, you know."

"Not really," Deed said. "Right at the front of the column, within the strongest ranks...that's where the most people will end up dead. You take out the biggest threat first."

"Oh? You think they aren't going to try and crush the small, weak little force all at once?"

Deed shrugged. "Maybe, but this is Beld. By all accounts, he'll go out of his way to destroy the Holy Knights as soon as he can to get at Fahn. That's his nature."

"Fahn isn't our concern," Alex said, shocking them into silence as he scanned the skies. "What? There are twenty thousand men in his ranks who're fighting almost solely to keep him alive. They're the shield; we're the arrow."

Deed's eyes darkened as a sudden thought occurred. "You're not going to try and win this battle alone, are you? Because misguided heroic stupidity isn't going to work."

He shrugged. "Mid-fourth century BC. The battle of Gaugamela. Alexander the Great took a force of roughly forty thousand men into battle against approximately three hundred thousand, and won. He won because one of his commanders was willing to engage in some misguided, heroic stupidity. Or he was ordered to anyway. His force was almost wiped out, but it doesn't change the fact that they won the battle through his sacrifice." He turned to her. "What does this tell us?"

"Human soldiers in that whatever-BC were idiots?"

He grinned. "It tells us that small groups, or weaker groups, can accomplish incredible things if they're determined enough." He shrugged. "The problem is that they usually pay for it heavily. So no, I'm not going to do anything TOO heroically stupid on the field of battle today if I can avoid it. I do have some ambitions, and one of those is to leave this field alive with as many of my men still alive as I can."

Further talk ended as the horses began whickering uneasily. The source of their unease proved to be a landing wyvern detached from Jester's forces.

Adeon Lyr had become a part of Alex's army. During the conference following the ball at Roid, Alex and Jester had met and had a long discussion on the possible merits of airborne combat. Prince Jester had been impressed and gratified at Alex's opinions and suggestions; they'd hit it off. Enough so that when Alex had made a (reasonable) request, the prince had been willing to grant it.

Hence Adeon's assignment. He was still young; younger than Alex, in fact. He wasn't a true dragon knight, more a dragon squire, so to speak. Not the bravest or boldest man, he had received permission to ride solo on his own business only three months ago; he had yet to receive any other assignments. In point of fact, the only thing about him that was remarkable was his eyesight; in modern terms, he'd have 20/5 vision.

In short, he was perfect as an aerial scout.

The Coyotes weren't so large as to need a lot of commanders; Jebra took care of the horsemen, Karl saw to the shooters, Orson watched over the phalanx, with Parn and Shiris doing double-duty on the skirmishers. They were the ones who actually moved the army in battle; his captains. Knowing that Adeon's appearance meant that something big had happened, that the ground-based scouts would be returning soon, they hurried over for his report.

Tall, lanky and grey-haired despite his youth, he pulled out a map made of wet clay resting on a light plank, hastily scratched out at altitude. "Kashue's advance force is under attack," he began without preamble. "They're holding their own, but..." he shook his head. "It seems like the Marmo aren't really bothering to try and finish him off. I've seen the assault aftermaths, and they'd need a lot more men than this to hit that hard that quickly."

"Could they be somewhere else? This could just be a decoy, or something."

Adeon shook his head at Karl. "I don't think so. The Marmo raid pattern has been a sword-stroke; they've been cutting a path straight for Roid. The only thing that they could possibly see as being bigger would be Roid itself, and there's no way they've managed to move the kind of troops in our path they'd need for that, not without being seen."

"They're waiting," Orson said simply. "Kashue's forces, struggling but not lost...Fahn and the rest of the allies will rush to his aid. It's a trap."

Adeon winced. "You think that just from the circumstances? Take a look at the terrain." They scrutinized the map as Adeon continued. "Fog's covering everything; it's most likely the result of some magic spell. There aren't any nearby bogs or rivers to account for it. I scouted the area once before though, and if I remember right, they're going to be leading Kashue into a depression in the ground; a valley almost completely surrounded by cliffs and hills."

Shiris whistled. "No decent scouting out enemy forces, few escape routes, terrain like that...definitely a trap."

Parn ground his teeth. "Damn it, we can't abandon King Kashue!"

Alex shook his head. "We won't. Neither will Fahn; he might recognize it as a trap, but he won't just abandon them." He sighed. "Alright, if I say anything wrong, jump in and correct me. The Marmo probably outnumber us." Nothing. "Adeon, can you give me a rough estimate? Based on either what the terrain could accommodate or what your other scouting would suggest."

Adeon winced. "I...there are about twenty thousand here right? I...I'd guess they outnumber us by at least ten, maybe fifteen thousand."

Alex winced; almost half. "Alright, they'll probably leave the ways in and out of the valley alone; that western pass and the southeast, right? So they're probably waiting on top of the hills; once we're inside there with Kashue, they'll throw everything they have on us like an avalanche."

"Sounds about right," Orson said. "Should we swing around and take them from behind?"

Alex shook his head. "Ashram has kobolds; they scout by sent as much as by sight. They're limited, but he has better eyes and ears in the fog than we do. He'll know it. Besides, we don't have the men to properly flank any of their forces anyway. No, we're going with Fahn right into the middle of the trap. Then we pull them in just as it springs, trapping them worse."

Jebra raised an eyebrow. "And how precisely do we do that?"

Alex grinned as he outlined his plan.

Orson frowned thoughtfully; thoughtfully for him, anyway. "The phalanx is strong, but we'll take losses. It would be better if we could position something else in that final position to hit them a bit harder than we'd be able to. If the cavalry's already committed, we'd need something else."

Adeon slowly smiled. "I think I can provide us with that." With nothing more to say, he turned to jog back to his wyvern, scrambling up. "If Prince Jester agrees, I'll swoop low and fire a burning arrow over the battlefield."

Alex stood. "Alright, we've got our plan. Let's make it work. Give your orders." He was surprised when Jebra clapped him on the shoulder.

The bluff, blond Alanian smiled at him. "You know, I actually think we might make it through this battle. But if not...kid, it's been an honor to serve. You'll be a legend when all is said and done."

Alex watched him go, shaking his head. "I hope not. Most legends have to die first."

"Interesting plan."

Alex was very proud of the fact that he didn't jump. Still, how she'd snuck up on him... "Think it'll work?"

Deedlit nodded, her face a bit grim though. "I certainly hope you'll be among the cavalry though, where you're less likely to get singled out."

He sighed. "Deed, I have to be at the center of this mess; if something goes wrong, I need to be there."

"You can't delegate?"

"I had to throw this army together in less than a month; I have good people in charge, but I haven't had the time to find the best people. If something goes wrong, if..." he sighed. "If mistakes are made, I'd prefer that they be because I made a bad tactical decision, not because I put the wrong person in charge."

She sighed. "You told me that there wasn't any chance of keeping me out of the fight; I wonder why I bothered to think I could keep you out." She seized his head, pulling him into a kiss.

It wasn't a particularly deep kiss. Nor particularly passionate. It certainly wasn't a French Kiss.

It left Alex light-headed.

She smiled at the dazed expression on his face. It was nice to be reminded that he was, in some ways, still innocent. She thought it was cute. "Isn't that a good way to prepare to go into battle?"

"...Is Chiffon okay with that," he managed, cursing himself for bringing her up a moment later. So he couldn't think straight; sue him.

Surprisingly, she just smiled at him; there was nothing innocent about THAT. "This just means she gets a turn kissing you when you see her next."

"...Oh...Wait, WHAT?"

She just smirked at him as she leapt back onto her horse.

A throat clearing itself behind him drew his attention. Nervous as hell, the _sarissan_ didn't warrant immediate recognition. Swallowing, he raised a large wooden box, bigger than Alex's head. "Uh...we uh, we had this made for you...sir. Just...just a token of our...well...it's been an honor, sir."

_Everybody seems to think that I'm an honor today_. Alex accepted the box, opening it curiously, wondering what precisely they thought was an appropriate gift. Particularly one that big that would be useful on a battlefield.

The soldier swallowed again. The Commander wasn't...well, reacting at all. He was completely blank-faced. "Sir?" He winced as Alex ignored him, tucking the box under one arm as he went back to his horse, pulling a black cloth mask over the lower half of his face with one hand as he went.

Alex calmly mounted, Bucephalus for once completely calm; the horse seemed to sense something in his mood. Ignoring the curious look from Wood and the outright question from Deed, he calmly slipped a hand into the box, and grasping its contents firmly, flung the box aside.

Without a word, he slipped on the helmet that had inside, drawing the facemask down, settling his ponytail in a slot that had been carved for just that purpose.

Cast and forged from bronze for the most part, it resembled a stylized dog's head and neck; the neck covering and protecting the back and sides of Alex's head, the dog's head forming a sort of visor. Long, straight, flat ears cast from the same metal had been set as a sort of crest on either side, black slits of jet embedded in the metal to form the dog's eyes, smaller slits where nostrils would have been. The facemask was burnished steel, and save for a single crease line down its center and the slits carved for his eyes, it was entirely featureless.

If this description is insufficient, look for an image of the head of Anubis from Zone of Enders, the 2nd Runner. It was the model for this helmet.

Deedlit swallowed nervously at the sudden transformation. "Alex?" She winced as the cold steel visage turned to regard her.

"How do I look?"

"Frightening," she answered, quite honestly.

* * *

Far above the battlefield, Wagnard watched the battle unfold. Kashue's men were strong, compared to the Marmo. So weak. The Marmo had at least five times their numbers; so insignificant. 

Life and death no longer mattered. It surprised him at times how easily, how insignificant it all really was. To think, he'd actually considered the living to be important at one point. Shocking, really.

Now, they were just sacrifices, a great river of blood and pain flowing to the slumbering goddess as he prepared to awaken her. "Please, be patient My Lady. Soon...soon even the rivers of blood that nurse you on this battlefield will be as nothing. I SHALL FEED YOU WORLDS!"

* * *

"KING KASHUE!" 

Kashue grunted as he hauled his sword out of an ogre's side; kidney failure was a cause of instantaneous death in that species. Useful to know, that. Jester had shown up only seconds earlier, spearing a dark elf that had been ready to stab him in the back. Better than the save however was the assurance that the rest of the allies were here.

If only the damned fog would burn off...

Be careful what you wish for, Kashue.

Sure enough, the fog began to fade, and what had been merely bad for Kashue and his men swiftly became an outright disaster for the entire Allied forces.

The goblins, men, and kobolds that had been holding Kashue's forces, that had herded them oh-so-conveniently into this area, were either dead or had retreated up the hills, rejoining the ranks of those standing higher. Beld held the south. Captains that Ashram trusted held the east and west. Ashram himself held the northern portion of the valley; each of them commanding over five thousand men; more for some, a great deal more for others.

All told, thirty two thousand Marmo troops surrounded them, cavalry holding the western route through the valley, ogres moving swiftly to cut off the retreat to the southeast.

Beld smirked darkly as he felt his sword ringing, the demonic blood warming his own warrior's spirit. "Fahn."

Below, Fahn closed his eyes, breathing deeply as he drew the Holy Sword. Close, now...less than half a mile. "Beld."

Amid panicked cries of dismay, realizations of the trap, Alex grimaced. They needed more time; his men were rushing to be where he needed them, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't...he paused, and turned, faced the north. There was no magical sword telling him. There didn't have to be.

Ashram.

On the northern slopes, dismounted, Ashram looked over the forces; he need not have worried about victory. They had suffered losses in their fighting; negligible for the most part, but losses all the same. Still, they had no need to worry; the Allies would be crushed here. Today. Slowly, solemnly, he drew his sword upward.

Silence descended; the calm before the storm.

In the sudden quiet, the sound of an arrow striking steel was almost lost. The sight of Ashram's sword, pin-wheeling through the air...the sound of air over its surfaces...those were a bit clearer.

Ashram's eyes narrowed; a figure was riding forward through the ranks. A figure on a dark gray horse, clad in unfamiliar dragon-scaled armor, polished silver-bright. His face was covered in a bestial mask, a longbow in his hand.

And set behind him on the saddle, a black-hafted copper spear. A spear he remembered all too well.

Ashram did not need to see Alex's face to know it was him.

Alex calmly slipped a single hand under his metal facemask, pulling down the cloth one and sliding off the helmet. This was for his men's benefit now, not Ashram's. He'd debated several times over whether or not to try and give a speech; he was glad now that he'd decided against it. This was much better. He allowed his gaze to sweep left and right, slowly and carefully; he knew the numbers. This was pure theatrics.

His head stopped as he finally met Ashram's eyes. He could feel a heat burning in him, feel the hot-blooded shift as his eyes went rust-colored...maroon...crimson. Raising a single hand, he stared Ashram straight in the eye.

And beckoned.

The silence was awesome.

For years afterward, no one would remember who started it; not even the man who did. All that would be remembered was the heart-beat rhythm that started in the phalanx.

(thump-thump...thump-thump...)

Ashram stared into the awed faces of the enemy as they watched Alex pointedly turn his back on Ashram and ride back, the helmet still at the pommel of his saddle. His men weren't impressed, were not afraid...but now, the allies weren't either. They were hopeful now. He turned calmly at the presence; Pirotess knelt gracefully, offering his sword to him once more.

(Thump-Thump...Thump-Thump...)

His eyes narrowed; they were getting louder. More importantly, he saw the look of question, of challenge in the dark elf's eyes. It was a look he remembered, one he recognized from several women, seeking flesh and glory, the glories of the flesh.

Though this time...he was...intrigued.

(Thump-Thump...Thump-Thump...)

Alex smirked at the rhythm; he'd taught them the song for marching purposes. Hey, it had good cadence. Though he certainly hadn't expected this. Infantrymen had joined in, alongside nearly the entire phalanx, some stomping where spear butts were not in presence. Though a new note had entered the beat, as the clatter of sword on shield punctuated each lub-dub repetition.

(THUMP-THUMP KLACK...THUMP-THUMP KLACK...)

He smiled, nodding his head at the phalanx; they took the first verse.

"_Buddy you're a boy, make a big noise  
__Playin' in the street gonna be a big man some day  
__You got mud on yo' face, You big disgrace  
__Kickin' your can all over the place"_

Every Coyote, from Jebra to the lowest of the slingers took up the chorus.

"_WE WILL, WE WILL,  
__ROCK YOU!  
__WE WILL, WE WILL,  
__ROCK YOU!"_

Alex smirked wider as the skirmishers began waving sword and axe, joining the second verse.

"_Buddy you're a young man hard man  
__Shoutin' in the street 'Gonna take on the world some day'  
__You got blood on yo' face, You big disgrace  
__Wavin' your banner all over the place"_

Valisian, Kannon, Alanian...irregulars joined.

"_WE WILL, WE WILL,  
__ROCK YOU!  
__WE WILL, WE WILL,  
__ROCK YOU!"_

They held the rhythm, but oddly enough Alex took the last verse alone, roaring to the south, howling a challenge at Beld himself.

"_Buddy you're an old man poor man  
__Pleadin' with your eyes Gonna make you some peace some day  
__You got mud on your face, You big disgrace  
__Somebody better put you back into your place"_

"_WE WILL, WE WILL,  
__ROCK YOU!  
__(SING IT!)  
__WE WILL, WE WILL,  
__ROCK YOU!"  
__(EVERYBODY SING IT)  
_"_WE WILL, WE WILL,  
__ROCK YOU!  
__WE WILL, WE WILL,  
__ROCK YOU!"_

The trumpet flourish didn't quite make up for what should have been an electric guitar, but it did well enough.

It also did wonders for their morale.

Ashram smirked as he raised his sword once more; Alex flung the bow back to one of his archers, couching his spear as he turned to face the charge.

Ashram's sword raised.

The sword lowered.

Adeon wheeled overhead, a burning arrow flying in the breeze.

And thus, the battle was joined.

* * *

Wort gazed calmly into the fire. The seven who had come to see him were still on his mind. 

He'd been rather surprised at the lack of recrimination; no one had said a word regarding his seeming relationship with Karla.

Still, there was too much to think about for him to dwell on that little tidbit. Particularly concerning what Alex had told him.

There had been few surprises at what he'd told them about Karla, though he imagined that he couldn't have topped her story if he tried. Still, the utter lack of reaction from Alex would have been very odd indeed for any normal boy.

Wort doubted his normalcy.

_(Flashback)_

_Alex frowned thoughtfully as he entered the tower's top room. He'd been getting...odd looks from Wort for the whole duration of his stay in the tower, and now this. The order framed as a request to talk to him privately. He REALLY hoped that Wort was well and truly opposed to Karla in this universe, because if the mage had decided it was time to throw his lot in with her...one of the first things he would have done would be to kill her opponents. An insightful opponent in particular._

_Though if that were the case and luck decided to notice it had been ignoring him lately, Wort might decide it wasn't worth the effort. "You wanted to see me?"_

_Wort was silent for a moment. "You seemed to know quite a bit about Karla already. More than I do, in fact."_

_Alex shrugged uncomfortably; the mage gave him the creeps. "I have a vivid imagination. And a great deal of guessing skill."_

"_You must be a monster with the dice," Wort replied. "Though your lying needs work." Not bothering to wait for any tiresome denials, he eased himself out of his armchair and beckoned Alex closer to one odd-looking shelf in his study. "There's an aura around you that you should know about; some of the others can sense it themselves. An aura that REEKS of the abnormal."_

_Alex shrugged. "I'm not exactly the most normal guy. Considering the company I keep though, I'm surprised that you noticed anything."_

_Wort smiled thinly. "Certainly, the auras surrounding them are unusual. At least by my standards." He slipped a small, thin book down from the shelf, thumbing through it briefly. "The closest thing to a normal aura I've seen belongs to that thief Woodchuck; human with nothing out of the ordinary. A bit dark, a bit ragged from hard living perhaps, but not much else. The dwarf is probably closest after that; different races have their particulars, but that's about it. Though again, darkened by hard living. Slayn's aura is far too controlled, too bright; he'll go far as a mage, I can tell you that. Perhaps as far or even farther than me. Though Chiffon's potential dwarf's his." He smiled at the suddenly frozen Alex. "Oh yes, her mixed heritage puts the energies around her into a bit of a flux. If she can manage that properly, she'd be able to draw enough power to match Karla herself. Something the witch undoubtedly noticed." _

_Wort froze. It had been a subtle thing, but Alex's aura had shifted just a bit. A bit like the shift in a berserker when Hyuri broke free. Turning slowly, he took in the sudden crimson glow in Alex's eyes, crimson turning to gold. Oh dear. He'd managed to make him angry. Sighing, he idly stroked what looked like the polished talon of a giant bird; the aura winked out instantly, the anger quenched. "Etoh has a bit of the supernatural around him; leak-over from the power he gains from his worship. Deedlit probably has the strangest. Pure-blood high elf, and a shaman to boot; there's hardly anything natural about her."_

"_You though...you're not even from Lodoss. Or Forceria; probably not even this entire world or any that has ever come close."_

_Alex froze. "What are you talking about."_

_Wort smiled again, pulling out a larger book and tossing it to Alex. "I think you know exactly what I mean."_

_Alex numbly caught the book, barely looking at it at first. Then it clicked that he recognized the cover art. "This...this is the Eye of the World. Book 1 of the Wheel of Time." He looked up. "A story taking place in a different world, published..." he frowned suddenly, hurriedly opening the book. "...this was published on earth. How the hell did you get a copy of this?"_

_Wort simply gestured, apparently giving Alex free rein to look over his collection. Alex stared in shock; not all of the titles he recognized. Not all of them seemed earthly, for that matter. Those he DID recognize... "The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Lyr, Taran Wanderer, The High King. You own a complete set of the Prydain Chronicles." He continued, pausing bit by bit. "The Chronicles of Narnia, three more books from the Wheel of Time...what's this?" He pulled down an oddly familiar-looking scroll. Opening it, he managed a chuckle at the contents. 'A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...' "Some of these are from other worlds, but...how did you get stories from another dimension?"_

_Wort shrugged. "You admit that you're a plane-walker?"_

_Alex grimaced. "I'm assuming that plane-walkers are dimension travelers? That depends; are you a plane walker if you had no control over the travel in the first place?"_

_That seemed to surprise Wort. "You didn't come here by choice? Most of the traders I find from off-world do it for the kick."_

_Alex shrugged uncomfortably. "I was sent here somehow, by neither choice nor design. You said my aura tells you that I'm not from around here; can anyone else tell that?"_

_It was Wort's turn to shrug uncomfortably. "The only reason I can see it for what it is comes from my dealings with plane-walkers. There's something odd about you; I doubt anyone else will be able to tell anything more that."_

_Alex was quiet for a moment. "And you confronted me why? You seem to trade with plane walkers, so I'm guessing it's not to kill or...deport me, out of hand. What do you want?"_

"_These stories...I've been told that in different worlds, that they actually occur. That for every world, someone somewhere, somewhen has come up with the story. You know more about Lodoss than anyone else; you know our story." He leaned forward. "I want to know."_

"_No."_

_Wort frowned. "It's unwise to refuse an archmage."_

"_It's worse for you to know your fate. I don't mind changing things, but I don't want people to know that they're 'just a story.'"_

_Worst snorted in disdain. "Just a story? This isn't cast in stone; I'm doubting you read a story that you were in. So things have changed, yes?" Alex nodded reluctantly. "I just want to know what MIGHT happen, from your point of view. What could that hurt?"_

_Alex was silent. A lot, to tell the truth. Still... "I might be willing to tell you. Not for free though."_

_Wort sighed. It always came down to this. "How much?"_

"_Not money. I need something that would be best made by an archmage. Specifically, I need a large, heavy metal box; preferably one with sides that are at least an inch thick on all sides. No hinges; they'd be a weak point. Multiple pieces with tongues that could be locked. Lead would be best, but iron would be acceptable. It has to be large enough to contain a queen's diadem. And lastly, enchanted with the most powerful 'don't-come-near-me' wards an archmage of considerable talent and wisdom could cast."_

_Wort was silent for a moment; there were few uses one could have for that. "You want me to build a cage for Karla; a cage for her true self. In exchange for one measly story."_

_Alex nodded. "A story that seems to be happening, in at least the major portions. A story not just of what might be, what seems to be coming."_

"_What could possibly be worth chaining a person I care for?"_

"_The end of all Lodoss. Not metaphorically, not figuratively; the end of all life on Lodoss, followed most likely by either the incineration or the inundation by sea of the Lodoss landmass."_

_Wort stared at him. "What?"_

_Alex crossed his arms. This was a risk, but he had to take it. "You want to know? I want the cage. And your word that you won't purposely leave a way out for that butcher."_

"_She is NOT a butcher!"_

"_What else would you call someone who, by their own admission, has she orchestrated half the wars in the history of Lodoss?"_

"_What would you call someone who has saved countless lives?"_

"_And condemned just as many."_

_Wort grit his teeth. He did not want to do this. Not by any stretch of imagination. But he had no choice; if this madman was telling the truth, he'd need to act, but he'd need more information. He could gather it himself, but this was the easiest way. And unfortunately, for all that he considered Karla more than simply a friend, he couldn't in good conscience leave her loose. "You give me your word you'll do nothing but keep her caged, and I'll make your cage."_

_Alex let go of a sigh he hadn't known he was holding. "The battle to come...I won't need it until after then. So please, take your time. This has to be something that can KEEP her chained for centuries to come."_

"_Enough. Tell me your story. I'll hold my end of the bargain."_

_(End Flashback)_

"Kardis." One thing that could be said for Karla, she orchestrated destruction with a purpose, grim as it might have been. Kardis though...he hadn't been joking. This was truly a threat to all of Lodoss.

And the hero who was supposed to do something about it was already taken by some red-headed strumpet. And Alex Latrans was all that remained.

Wort had taken the time to check up on Parn, compare the two in suitability in his own opinion.

It would have been gratifying to Alex to learn that Wort thought he'd do a better job.

* * *

"SNIPERS! Volley down the center line, over the heads of the phalanx! Aim for the rear!" Karl raised his own bow along with them, firing even as he roared orders. Every slinger and archer, all two hundred of them, were firing a furious hail into the charging ranks of the Marmo. Alex had expressly told them to start at the rear and work their way forward; he wanted the first wave to hit the phalanx fresh. The peltasts were hanging back, behind and around the flanks of the skirmishers, picking their targets carefully, spearing the odd ogre whenever convenient, but waiting for knights. 

Alex had managed to find a few blacksmiths and shown them how to forge a _pilum_, the deadly Roman javelin. The head was almost two feet long, with a narrow point and roughly a foot and a half of steel behind it; nothing more than a half-inch spar of metal. Unlike the normal _pilum_, he'd added an older Greek trick to it, having them tie strips of leather around the hafts about two thirds of the way back from the head. Before throwing, they'd twist the leather around the haft a few times and grasp the end of the thong before launching it, adding a spin to its motion. The end result was a accurate weapon that could reliably pierce the heavy plate of a knight, both coming in and coming out.

It was the medieval equivalent of an armor-piercing bullet. And they were taking out knights right and left.

Orson rose, positioned on the far left flank of the phalanx. "Prepare for advance. Hold the wedge formation; time the charge to hit just as they reach the bottom of the hill." The phalanx was spread out, forty eight men wide and eight men deep, skirmishers holding the flanks. The wedge formation was simple, really; advance in a triangular shape, with the middle men striking hard first, the men at the ends striking last. With the snipers thinning the ranks directly in front of them, they'd be able to cut a hole through the enemy ranks in a single mad charge.

Alex's entire battle plan centered on their success.

Grimacing, Alex yanked off his helmet. It looked cool, sure, but he was still stuck with giving the orders, and there was no way to bellow with the thing on. "Phalanx, CHARGE!" He watched as the massive spears lowered; the first charging Marmo who'd outstripped their comrades died charging onto the spears. Grimly he watched the wedge take off; he wished them well. What turned his stomach was the skirmishers. They had no real advantage beyond the shields he'd insisted they learn to fight with; losses would be heaviest there.

And they themselves were nothing more than a shield.

Forcing himself not to react, he watched as the wedge drove deep into the lines; they were cutting a gap into the thinned ranks. "Archers! Cover the flanks!" The streams of stones and iron pellets, arrows and crossbow bolts parted like water on the rocks, streaming over the heads of the skirmishers to brain and pierce, bruise and wound. The phalanx was nearly through; the ranks were only ten or twelve men deep, and the phalanx hadn't had much to strike at.

A rider came pelting up; one of the twenty four horse archers that had been made into his 'honor guard.' "King Fahn and King Kashue have agreed to the plan. King Fahn is retaining most of his cavalry, but King Kashue is sending every horseman who was part of the advance guard now."

Alex nodded; they'd hopefully get a chance to breathe, to rest and bulk up their courage. "They are to report to and obey Jebra; are they in formation?"

"Close enough."

He nodded, turning back. The phalanx had just punched through, though likely they were too battle-mad to realize that there was no one left to stab. "PHALANX! CUT AND HOLD GAP! SKIRMISHERS TO FORM SECONDARY FLANKS! CONTINUE THE ADVANCE! WIDEN THE GAP!"

Skirmishers broke away from the rear, along with the archers and snipers. Some could fight at close range, but most would be helpless. He needed them out of the main battle if they were going to be of much use. Skirmishers rushed through the gap, forming flank guards among along the sides of the now-divided phalanx, curling around and hacking into the Marmo on their rears. "Jebra, take your cavalry through the gap! Curl to the north; strike from the northeast. Avoid Ashram's forces as much as you can; he'll be leading the elite. Go!"

Jebra nodded, and broke straight into a gallop through the widening gap in the lines, two hundred and forty light and heavy horse of the Coyotes following, over a thousand heavy and light horse from Kashue's advance force tailing them raggedly. They'd fought almost the entire day; they had fought their part in the battle. He was going to give them a slaughter.

Now it was the crucial moment. You can't not notice a thousand horses running away; not only were the Marmo rallying, the Allies were likely in shock at the seeming retreat.

This was the part he'd actually been hoping for; no more commands, no more men to lead. Now, it was just him and his spear. "ORSON! KARL! PARN! SHIRIS! YOU HAVE YOUR ORDERS!" Heeling Bucephalus, he turned and charged straight into the ranks of the Marmo.

When a commander runs and the peasantry remains, it is because he is abandoning them. When the commander orders his men away and stays behind, it is tactical.

He just had to prove that to them now. Through feat of arms.

* * *

Fahn grimaced as he hacked another man in half; he'd taken the southern force personally, and it comprised almost solely of humans. Beld's personal forces. Beside him, nine of the sixteen who had comprised his guard still stood, back-to-back, fighting beside him. Two were dead; he would mourn them in time. Three more were wounded; the last two were tending to them. The remaining nine had long since given up any idea of keeping him from the fighting; they fought now only to make sure that his opponents had to come at him face-to-face. He grunted as he spun to prevent a back-stab on one of his guards; he alone was fresh among them. Pharis' Breath was a sword of priestly magic; it healed and sustained him on the battlefield, at least with no magical threat to contend with. He would have to use that as much as he could now; it would be pure muscle and spirit when he fought Beld. 

He only prayed that Alex could keep the rest of the army alive, turn this tragedy into something worth living after.

He started as a sudden, weird noise came from beyond the ring of bodyguards. He instinctively brought his sword up in a guard, and stared in mingled horror and awe.

Alex was on the warpath.

When fighting from horseback with a spear, the accepted method of fighting is to hold the spear at the middle in an overhand grip and stab at men as they come. Alex, shall we say, was not. Having grasped the rear of the haft with both hands widely spaced, he was using the full, sweeping length of the spear as his weapon, great flowing strokes falling among the Marmo. Those closest were bludgeoned by the haft, skulls cracked, or worse, knocked off their feet into the cruel, churning hooves of Bucephalus. Those at the edge of his reach fell swiftly; heads, arms, or shoulders either cut completely away or split open, falling and gushing blood from the strokes of the cross-shaped blade.

In his wake trailed the horse archers; clustered in groups of three, they shot carefully into the disoriented ranks surrounding him, one into the front, the others covering their respective flanks. On occasion, they pulled out curved, heavy-bladed swords to hack at those too close, but by and large they stuck to their arrows. What was worse, they didn't simply ride around shooting; they wove intricate, braid-like patterns through the Marmo; iron-shod hooves killed as many as arrows, but the true aim of their maneuver was confusion. Fahn knew that there were twenty four, but only because he had been told so. For all he knew, in that milling confusion, there could have been twenty, or there could have been eighty; they simply couldn't be counted.

It was not the horse archers, nor Alex's unorthodox fighting style that drew his attention however. It was Alex's cry. No one on Lodoss had ever heard the howl of a coyote. No one could have recognized the weird, eerie, wailing high howl that was issuing from his throat. They did not equate it with the stark prairies of his home, nor the familiar images of western film.

They heard a demon singing, and saw a white-haired angel of death riding in its wake.

Deedlit grimly galloped after Alex, a light horse bow in her hands. Her rapier was a stabbing weapon, the perfect thing for slipping through armor chinks. At a full gallop, particularly on a swift horse, there's little time to aim and stab, so she had foregone that for now, sniping at those who came to close to Alex.

The Marmo had lost a good deal of momentum; they had long since reached the bottoms of the hills, and were simply pressing in. They'd found stubborn knots of resistance; Kashue on foot, his remaining infantry stubbornly fighting; Wood, heavy daggers in each hand, oddly enough leading Kannon irregulars; the heavy horse under Marius, who fought hard through sheer stubbornness more than prowess.

All that was about to change. Jebra crested the hills on the northeast, well above any of the fighting. To either side, the heavy cavalry of the Coyotes formed up, one hundred and sixty strong. Staring grimly into the mess, he raised a silver-chased horn to his lips, aware that every man beside him was mirroring him as they sounded a thunderous call.

Ashram cursed at the sight of the men; granted, it wasn't enough to end the battle, but it was enough to give them a reprieve. The unusual fighting methods, the phalanx in particular, had caught his eye; he had to think hard, think flexibly if he was going to counter whatever came next.

We mustn't judge Ashram for any gaffs; we will NOT call them blunders. This is a time of dark ages and chivalry; it is not clever thinking nor great leadership, no tactics or maneuvers that win battles in this time. Nothing matters but strength of arms. Ashram was particularly good at putting the strength of others in good places to hit hard, but he was not used to having to innovate on the spot, to out-think opponents. There were few opponents on Lodoss who had to be out-thought, after all. Despite the legendary prowess of Kashue and Fahn, these tales had nothing to do with brilliant strategy; this was feat of arms and charisma.

So he had not put together the regrouping maneuver here with the loss at Fortress Myce; he had assumed there that men from a patrol had returned and crushed his men. No one on Lodoss, certainly no one who counted himself among chivalry, would have so cheerfully run away.

Jebra smiled darkly as the bulk of Ashram's and his captain's forces turned to face the relatively small force. No speeches here; there was simply work to be done. "CHAAARRRGEEE!"

The Coyotes remained still; the charge came not at first from them, it came from the one thousand heavy horse that had remained just beyond the crest of the hill, just out of sight. Only when they had crested, only when they were ready and in motion did the Coyotes join the strike.

The Lord of the Rings does not do justice to a cavalry battle; the image is not enough any more than sound. The cavalry charge is not something you see or hear, so much as it is something that is felt. The horses of the knighthood are not sleek, swift-running Arabians or track-racing thoroughbreds; look at a Belgian, a Clydesdale, a massive beast that weighs close to a ton. These are not swift creatures, but they are powerful, nigh-unstoppable once moving. They cannot go past thirty five miles an hour even in full charge, but sheer momentum carries them. Steel-hard muscle drives them forward, a burden of two hundred and fifty, even three hundred pounds of steel armor, flesh and sword, great iron-shod hooves driving them onward like a lowing, bellowing gray avalanche.

Over fourteen hundred tons of horseflesh, pounding away at the turf, hooves beating in a steady staccato rhythm as they charged, like unto being struck by a fleet of tanks, though live tanks; bellowing, enraged.

There was no mortal force on all Lodoss that could have stood under such an assault.

The Marmo were not fools. Even as the front ranks fell, some to swords and most to crushing hooves, they turned and fled. There were no cliffs to climb and stop them, no archers to hamstring the massive beasts and cut the line apart. They dared not face the heavy horse; they dared not head for the southeastern gap; too many would be crushed in a race perpendicular to the line of horse. They turned and fled for the western gap, leaving their horse to try and stem the charge, fled for the grounds that Beld himself held secure.

What they found waiting for them was like the descent of hell.

A wyvern on its own weighs up to a ton and a half, on average. This is actually rather light for such a massive creature; any flier is lighter than a corresponding land animal. They were, unlike horses, flesh-eaters; their instinct to kill is stronger than any horse. And whereas a horse can reach at best forty miles an hour (Bucephalus was beyond exceptional), in a full dive a wyvern can reach over two hundred miles per hour.

Straight out of the now-setting sun, four hundred wyverns swooped in three staggered lines, diving hard, pulling up only at the last to rake their talons, fisted toes through the charging men.

The slaughter of the Horse was nothing compared to that of the Dragon.

Struck from the west, struck from the northeast, they had no choice, and charged for the previously abandoned gap to the southeast, a deliberate hole in the lines. Alex had no intention of holding them long enough to wipe them out; he wanted them out of Lodoss, not exterminated.

Unfortunately, he was the only one.

Fahn charged up to the tiring horseman. "Your phalanx! Where are they?"

Alex looked up, sweat and blood (remarkably little of the blood his own) gleaming dully on his armor. "Most of them are over the hills, still pushing the infantry. My southern half with their skirmishers and the infantry that tagged along swung south, and are herding the Marmo into the gap."

Fahn set his jaw. He did not like the orders he was about to give, but he didn't have a choice here; the battle couldn't end in a stalemate. "Order your men to break off and seal the gap."

Alex stared at him; he was tired enough at this point that he honestly wondered if he had heard incorrectly. It was Fahn's expression more than his words that convinced him. "Your majesty, they're terrified now, but that's not going to last. If we seal the gap, force them into here, they'll go berserk with the fear. My men won't last under that kind of assault. Let them go, and Prince Jester's forces can harry them all the way back to Marmo."

Fahn grimaced. He was uncomfortably aware of the fact that after this display of leadership, his men might not be all that inclined to disobey the man. More than that, he was perfectly aware that Alex had gone out of his way to stay out of Fahn's command. Still... "Alex, we can't let them go. This isn't vengeance, this isn't about my feud with Beld, this is simply the way it is. We outnumber them now, but only barely; it will take five years at most even for what's left to rebuild an army strong enough to threaten us again. If we don't end this now, if we don't strike hard enough to shatter their resolve for generations, the wars will continue. I have to end this now. And..." he grimaced. "...And yes, I need to settle this with Beld, while he still thinks he might stand a chance."

Alex stared at Fahn for a moment, expressionless. If he wanted to, he could just order his men out of the battle; he didn't have to stay for this. Unfortunately...he owed Fahn. And worse, he saw the right of it. He agreed in the need to end it. He'd just hoped if wouldn't have to end in an all-out face-to-face battle. "I'm not sending in my phalanx," he finally said. He ignored the angry murmurs from Fahn's bodyguards. "The sarissans are heavy infantry; they'll never make it in time, not against kobolds." He swung his horse around; the fighting was to the north of them now. "Kane, keep half of the archers here. Shoot burning arrows into the air until Adeon gets the hint; I need the wyverns ringing the hills around the gaps. The rest of you, come with me."

Kane coughed pointedly. "Sir, Jester isn't a Coyote. He doesn't have to take your orders."

Alex looked over at Fahn for a moment before answering. "Sometimes, we do what we do because we don't have any other choice. Because we have to. Sometimes...sometimes it doesn't have to come to that."

* * *

Ashram watched the slaughter, and cursed. Whoever had come up with that plan had orchestrated it beautifully; it was pure and efficient butchery. His own men had been spared the bulk of the strike, as had Beld's, but as for the remaining two forces... 

Butchery. The Marmo had lost well over half their numbers. There were enough to make this an even fight, but not with this kind of strike.

They'd lost. Any further combat was simply delaying the admission.

And so, Ashram turned his mind, his planning, not to finding a way to fight back, but rather to finding a way to extricate his men from this mess. The simplest way would be to carve a path out of the battle field, but it would mean more losses. If that damned witch could have been contacted, she could have thrown up either another cloud of fog, or better yet a thunderstorm. Just taking the dragon knights out of the equation would have given Ashram the breathing room he needed to retake one of the gaps and order the retreat.

Wishing didn't win battles.

He frowned as his eyes lit on the by now familiar silvery dragon-scale armor. Alex was riding to challenge him. His frown...shifted, from anger to thought. It might not get his men out of this mess perfectly, but it might at least give them a chance. Besides which, it half-served his purposes; he wanted to fight the lancer again, this time at the peak of his condition.

And so, he turned to give his orders, before preparing himself for what would be a particularly difficult task.

Fighting Alex.

And NOT killing him.

* * *

Alex howled as he rode. Achiya was singing in rapture to the bloodshed; the flashes of blood racing off the lengths of his spear seemed to form wings, if only for a moment in his eyes. He grimaced as he noticed an ogre in his path. More importantly, one who'd hit upon a fool-proof way of dealing with horsemen. Stand right in their path, swing his scythe into the horse's chest at the last minute... 

And bodily hurl the charging equine over his head.

Grimacing, he set Bucephalus to charge straight at him. He didn't particularly LIKE the horse, but he didn't want to kill him. He was useful, after all. This though...this would take some doing. He was careful to gauge the length of the scythe; he had to make his move before they were in range of the massive weapon. At a full gallop, he drew close; at fifteen feet away, he made his move.

Knees more than reins put Bucephalus into a turn away from the ogre, catapulting Alex out of his saddle. Using his spear as a vaulting pole, he managed to fling himself into the air at the ogre, rising over its head. The ogre swung its scythe upward anyway; he could kill a human as easily as a horse; easier, in fact. Fortunately, Alex was close enough that he didn't get the full force of the stroke. Even better, he managed to dodge the blade entirely, catching the upward swing of the staff on the bottom of his boot, and using it to rise even higher. At the top of his flight, he took a deep breath, drawing the spear upward.

Fall and muscle power had less to do with it than the sheer bloodlust of Achiya's spirit.

Alex whipped the spear downward, splitting the ogre from crown to crotch, bisecting him cleanly. Not stopping there, he whipped the spear around, cutting a second time before the ogre even had time to fall, quartering him.

He was dimly aware of both ally and enemy watching. Most of his attention however was drawn by the Presence.

Ashram smirked as he strode forward, his sword carving brief flashing arcs at those who chose to try and kill him; none succeeded. "It seems that you really are better with a spear than you are a sword." He sheathed his blade pointedly.

Alex ground his teeth. It was odd, but he wasn't afraid of Ashram anymore. His eyes had been fading a bit through the battle until they were more maroon than red; they were pure gold in an instant, though for some reason Alex hadn't lost his clarity at this point. "Think you can beat me when I'm not half-dead?" He frowned as Ashram's hand went under his cloak. He never even saw his arm move, but suddenly an axe was in the ground in front of him. The axe that Ghim had made him. Growling, he used the tip of his spear to flick it into the air, tucking it into his belt.

The challenges...it was odd, but they somehow managed to draw a great deal of attention. The Marmo had learned the hard way to watch Alex on the battlefield, while the Allies knew Ashram by sight; the deadliest opponent on the field. The Marmo came to watch not merely the stranger, they came to cheer on their captain; the Allies came to see what Alex could do as well as to prepare for the worst.

Forget what you may have heard or read; battlefields see very few duels. There is seldom the space, the focus necessary for such a thing. Certainly, there is none of the necessary respect; your enemies are NOT going to stand around and watch to enforce the rules of engagement.

And yet somehow, it seemed like half the army had stopped simply to watch, the rest straggling in.

In the silence, the clatter of armor, the creak of leather grips on weapons was clear to all. It began with a charge.

Ashram frowned at the sight. The warning not to charge fell from his lips as his unconscious concluded analyzing the stance and move, and changed the rest of his mind. Alex was gripping his spear no more than six inches from the butt end, balancing the front on his left hand. He charged fast; faster than Ashram could have, shoulders and hips rotating at the last instant to snap the head forward.

Ashram chose that moment to draw his sword, iaijutsu modified for a straight blade turning the motion into block and strike as one as he knocked the spear to the side, coming in with a pommel strike to the head. Alex didn't bother trying to stop the spear's motion from the block, simply deflecting it enough to put the tip in the dirt. Bracing, he used it to leap the stroke, landing behind Ashram and spinning to pull the spear back into a more controlled guard.

Ashram halted his charge instantly, turning back to face Alex, sword slowly raising into an overhand stance; a poor choice for defense, but an intimidating stance that allowed for devastatingly powerful blows.

Alex frowned though. He'd expected the deflection from his charge; that had been mainly to close distance rather than to end the battle. The pommel strike...puzzled him. It would have been easier (and much more like Ashram) to have used the blade. A pommel strike was a controlled stroke, easier to maneuver than a blade, yet Alex wasn't THAT fast. Ashram could have made the strike at any time.

And his stance! He was slower than Alex; abandoning defense was NOT the good choice in that situation. Particularly when Alex's spear made it nearly impossible for him to get close enough to make that power stroke anyway.

Two mistakes from a man who did NOT make mistakes in a duel. Certainly not these two.

Ashram stared hard at Alex. This would have been easier with his cooperation, but for now he'd have to wing it. He just hoped that his TERRIBLE form would be hint enough.

Cautiously, Alex copied his earlier stance; left side leading, left hand balancing spear; his charge-and-thrust stance. Ashram lowered his sword immediately as Alex charged the short distance; again, the rotation thrust. Ashram grimaced, and dropped low, his sword deflecting the spear again as he chopped low. Alex easily leapt the stroke, pulling the spear haft under his back to aid in deflecting a changed stroke, but none came. He landed and leapt back, frowning. Ashram hadn't moved; he was holding a squatting stance, right leg extended to his side for balance, his left cocked under him. Was he...posing?

And the heat fled Alex's eyes.

Ashram rose slowly. He'd taken a bit risk leaving his back exposed; time to see if it had paid off.

Alex planted the butt of his spear against the ground, staring at Ashram, then snapping his left hand out, he beckoned.

And Ashram smiled. It seemed the lancer was willing to play along.

Deedlit rode up, grumbling a bit at the seeming need to dismount to work her way through the crowd. What on earth was going on in here? There wasn't anywhere else that Alex could be, so what was going on? She crowded past the last of the soldiers, and froze, staring.

The fight took her breath away.

Ashram carefully deflected the flurry of thrusts before binding the spear on its barbs, pushing it to the side as he came in. Alex managed to pull the haft back, spinning it over his head as he bent over, almost like a tumbler, deflecting the blows effortlessly. Bending further, he planted the butt in the ground on the spin, transferring the momentum to his own body as he somehow hand-walked his way up the spear, spinning to plant a kick in Ashram's face. Ashram threw up an X-block in the face of the blow, though it was powerful enough to send him backwards. Alex landed and used the opportunity to somersault backwards several times, using his spear as a counter-balance. At the apex of his final leap, he plunged his hands into the sleeves of his coat, pulling out a number of throwing knives; gifts from Wood. He hurled all six at once at Ashram.

Ashram had long since recovered his footing. Smiling, he somehow managed to whirl his bastard sword fast enough to catch and deflect each knife in turn, spinning them into the air. As they descended, there was one perfect moment in which they all aligned, all six in a straight line, one atop the other, all six pointed at Alex. With a swift underhand stroke, Ashram catapulted them straight at Alex. For his part, Alex landed and seized his spear by the middle of the haft, and wove it through a furiously quick double-figure-eight, deflecting the knives back into the ground.

Wood shook his head. "This...this is insane. Where the hell did Alex get that good?"

Dedlit though...she frowned. There was something wrong with the way they were fighting. Alex liked airborne fighting and leaps well enough, but somersaults? Why waste the time, or effort? Ashram puzzled her as well; shouldn't he have been able to use the time it took for Alex's stunt climbing the spear to make an attack? Or those knives, for that matter; the easiest way to deal with throwing knives was to dodge them, or barring that, deflect them into the ground. Why on earth go to the trouble of using that flashy -

Her jaw dropped. Flashy. Efficiency had been abandoned in this fight; everything here was gauged not to kill, but to impress.

Alex and Ashram weren't fighting. They weren't even sparring.

They were performing an exhibition, one good enough to have caught the attention of the entire army.

It was simple, really. A big part of its success was luck; both sides, over twenty five thousand people, had stopped to watch. The point though was safety; preserving both sides. Because if they were busy gawking at their respective champions in a duel, they weren't trying to kill each other.

Alex might not have been willing to end the battle before Fahn got HIS duel, but he had no problem with cooperating enough to stop the rest of the fighting without making it look like they were. Sure, Kashue, and Fahn, and Beld probably realized this was all just show-fighting, but the commons soldiery...

Ashram and Alex were now, officially, bona fide Cool.

Though they were getting kind of tired; hopefully someone would seize the chance here.

Beld smirked darkly as he stalked grandly out of the lines. The fight was impressive, but really, he needed to have a word with Ashram; what was he doing, dancing? "I'm sure you could beat him, but I fail to see any particular reason to continue this farce. I'll deal with this."

Ashram grit his teeth, mainly to bite down the smile. Their fight had done precisely what it had been meant for. Now he just had to figure out how to keep his king alive; most of his men had already retreated as per his orders. He simply sheathed his sword. "As you wish."

Beld smirked as he approached Alex. "I'm impressed. Not many people can even survive so long against Ashram. To hold out against him...you must be quite good."

Alex managed a smile, still on an adrenaline high. That had been...fun, actually. Now though; he didn't stand a chance against Soul Crusher. More importantly, he had no idea what a spirit-devouring weapon would do to his possessed spear. "Thanks, I think. Though considering that it's your sword that's the threat and not you, I suppose that's not worth as much."

He'd expected anger. Laughter from the dark emperor was somewhat of a surprise. "You're more like him than you realize," Beld managed as his mirth subsided. "Even fewer would have the balls to talk like that." He drew Soul Crusher...and frowned. The humming was there; it never really stopped, but this time...it was getting stronger.

Alex started as he felt a gauntleted hand fall on his shoulder. Turning, he winced at the sight of a hard-faced Fahn. He didn't need to hear it, but the old king spoke anyway. "This is my battle now, Alex. This is the reason I came."

Alex didn't bother trying to talk him out of it. He fumbled at his belt for one of his two remaining pouches of rock firefly dust, and tossed a handful into the king's face. Ignoring the looks of surprise, he clapped the king on the shoulder. "Good luck, your majesty. Try not to die." Turning, he walked over towards Deed.

The elf simply gave him an arch look. "You should have done something involving pole-vaulting with that stupid spear of yours. That or stand around making ham speeches."

He winced. "I was kind of hoping you wouldn't put that part together."

She shook her head. "I thought you hated Ashram with all your might; Chiffon told me what you looked like when you came out of the camp. Why not just kill him?"

Alex looked on as Fahn and Beld finished their challenges, their introductory monologues, their plot expositions. "It wasn't about me or him; it was about distracting everyone else from the fight." He smiled at the surprised look on her face. "I don't really care if the Marmo live or die, I just want them off of Lodoss proper."

She was quiet for a while as she looked at him. "You're more merciful than I would have thought," she finally managed.

That put a bit of a damper on his mood. How many people had he ended up killing today, directly or through his orders... "Not really. I just don't hate them the way someone born here would."

Fahn grunted in pain as he bound swords with Beld. He was old, damn it, and not as strong as he used to be. He'd had no troubles with the rest of the battle; among other things, the Holy Sword healed its wielder of fatigue, provided the energy they needed to keep going. Now though...countering the power of Soul Crusher was no simple or easy thing. All of the sword's power was going to combat, leaving little if any for him. No, this was just muscle and will now. "Why did it come to this, Beld? Why did we have to come to this?"

Beld grimaced as he pushed back. He would have thought soft living would have slowed down the older man, but he was holding his own; neither of them was in that great of shape, truth be told. "I swore an oath that I would make Lodoss one land; I will NOT betray Flaus's memory. (1)"

"She wanted a peaceful Lodoss, not a conquered one!" he roared as he set his weight and shoved.

Beld grunted as he caught himself, parrying two successive slashes and going back onto the attack. "Flaus was wiser than you are Fahn, wiser than me. And she knew that the only thing that could unite Lodoss...was STRENGTH!" He broke their stalemate as his cuts started chipping away at Fahn's armor, the cloak shredding under his onslaught. "Lodoss will not be united by pacts and treaties, by your weak-kneed diplomacy! These people have to be brought under one rule because they're all too stone-stupid to realize they should bend their knees!"

Fahn abruptly stepped into the cut, letting it glance off his armor as he rammed Beld with a shoulder tackle, pushing him back. "Bringing the people under one rule is only the beginning; can you continue and rule a people that feel nothing for you but hatred?"

Beld used Soul Crusher to lever himself back to his feet. "That's not an issue, nor will it ever be, if you don't complete the unification." He pointed the tip of his blade. "The people of Lodoss have been at war for seven hundred years; they haven't realized yet, nor will they realize, that peace can even exist. You can't change them."

"I can try, so long as they're alive." Fahn tightened his grip. They'd been dueling back and forth almost fifteen minutes now; neither one wanted to kill the other. Did they have a choice anymore? "But the deaths you've caused...you've taken away their chance to try. I won't let anyone else die...I'm sorry, my old friend."

Beld managed a smile. He really wished that Fahn would have been willing to help him; he didn't really care how the unification got done as long as it was done. The old king would have been useful. "So be it. I will not back down from my dream, nor will I fail my oath."

As one, they raised their swords. As one, they charged.

As one, they struck.

Beld's eyes widened as a blur caught the corner of his eye. Something rather large was hurtling towards him. It was reflex rather than design that slowed his sword; the sweeping cut that would have laid open Fahn's throat and head faltered ever so slightly to deflect the missile, cutting cheek, collarbone, and chest, only grazing the great carotid artery he'd aimed for.

Fahn had struck first. His overhead cut for the shoulder had cleaved fur-lined cloak, armor and flesh in one blow, but he'd failed. The stroke did not kill, nor did it mortally wound. And with a sword like Pharis' Breath, it was the blade that killed, not the magic.

Ashram stared as the axe clattered to the ground; the axe he'd thrown back to Alex. He hadn't expected that of Alex; he'd expected him to respect their duel. A mistake he didn't intend to make again.

Alex ignored the glared daggers as he charged the field of battle, a lance in hand; NOT Achiya. He knew what was coming, and he had to try. Ashram had no way of knowing that the axe hadn't been aimed at Beld; he'd only hoped to distract the Dark Emperor. Now, he owed him; he would protect him, if he could.

Ashram belatedly realized that Alex wasn't going for Fahn. Alex was charging Beld. Shaken, he turned to run for his emperor, cursing the sloth of his armor. Alex paused only long enough to dump his remaining bag of rock firefly dust on Fahn. He had read that Soul Crusher devoured the spirits of those who fell to its blade; it wouldn't take much to kill. He'd hoped that the combination of the earlier application of dust and The Holy Sword's own protective magics might protect him from anything short of a killing stroke. Now though...now he had other worries.

He didn't throw or strike with the lance. Oddly enough, he held it right up until the moment before he tackled Beld to the ground, the emperor only just turning, weary and dizzy from blood loss, shock just widening his eyes as he saw this lunatic charging him.

Alex did not strike. He plunged the spear into the ground at their feet just as the two of them hit the ground.

Karla's javelin, the one intended to tear open Beld's chest, instead plunged through his leg.

Alex winced, but he knew what would come next; her lightning stroke to finish the job. His larger spear would hopefully serve as a lightning rod, but he couldn't take any chances. And so, disregarding the possible damage he was about to do, he kicked the javelin in Beld's leg as hard as he could, splintering the shaft six inches above the muscle.

Beld's roar of pain was drowned out as lightning struck, incinerating the lance.

Alex didn't stop to think; he was on auto-pilot now, moving as quickly as he knew how. It was all planned. He couldn't risk further lightning strikes; he had to get Beld under cover fast. And the fastest way to accomplish that would be to get him to Ashram; Kashue and Parn, and just about everyone else would worry about Fahn; this was his goal now.

He paused as he noticed the faintly glowing Soul Crusher; if Beld had died, the energy flux from the power being uncontrolled would have whipped up a gale-force wind across the entire battlefield. As it was, the sword seemed...curious, more than anything else. Not really thinking, he grabbed the hilt as he slung an arm over his shoulder and began dragging Beld away.

_So strong..._

He blinked, shaking his head. Why the hell was there a sultry female voice in his head?

_Stronger than Beld..._

Stronger than...Oh. Soul Crusher was...he shook his head. A sword was flirting with him. Great. He managed to ignore the continued caressing promises, at least until the (apparently female) spirit decided enough with the coyness, and started zapping him.

That was about when Ashram arrived.

He dumped Beld into the knight's arms. "Be careful of the wound in his leg; I don't think I hit the femoral artery, but he could be bleeding badly." Alex turned to leave when he felt it. That was no zap. Turning, he stared; Soul Crusher was in Ashram's hands, as natural as breathing.

"You knew that was going to happen."

Alex swallowed nervously. Well, on the plus side, if Ashram was able to command its power easily in this universe, maybe Karla's strikes wouldn't work. "You shouldn't have trusted Karla. Not in the least."

"I didn't."

"Then you shouldn't have let her have anything to do with your campaign."

Ashram stared at Alex, masking his confusion with anger. Oh, he was angry, certainly, but he could no longer quite decide at who he was angry. One moment he was leading the charge into the Marmo, almost single-handedly crushing them, the next he was fighting a show duel to save them. He tried to assassinate Beld to save Fahn, and was now saving the emperor. What did he have planned. Finally, he lowered the sword, though did not sheathe it. "You're in no condition to continue a battle. Neither are we. I think that is good enough."

Alex nodded. Kashue would be pissed, but he could live with a draw. "If you want some good advice, the second you see him, cut Wagnard in half. Save us all a great deal of trouble."

Ashram frowned. "Something you're not telling me?"

Alex sighed. Not being in an immediate near-death situation did wonders for your nerves. "One of many. Beyond that, I refuse to say." Not bothering to wait for more, he turned and left.

Karla chose that moment to strike, hurling a ball of flame the size of a peasant cottage at him.

Ashram would never know why he did it. Regardless of the friendship they shared in the future, he couldn't explain it under the current circumstances. What matters I suppose is that he did.

Having passed Beld to Pirotess, it was the sword that had warned him. Turning, he'd seen the descending fire, and acted. Charging Alex, he tackled him just as Beld had been, and the sword did the rest.

Deedlit screamed. She'd seen it; she'd heard the rumors. Alex was a survivor, but against that...no, not even he could have withstood that. Oh my god...Alex...how...how am I going to tell Chiffon...

The sight of him rising, unscathed from the ruins of the flame, Ashram at his back, was something of a mixed blessing.

Alex hadn't had time to be afraid; the fire had descended before he could even realize it, Ashram had defended him before he could worry, it was done before he could wonder...no, fear hadn't entered into the equation. The only thing he felt was anger. That hadn't been a strike at the army, or the still-living Beld, or even Fahn. That was personal. She'd just gone out of her way to try and murder him.

He'd have taken that from Beld, or any number of people. Not her.

"ADEON!"

The wyvern rider started, but nudged his dragon into flight. Deed ran up, staring. He was alive. He wasn't even scratched. "Alex..."

He didn't really notice. At least not until she tackled him.

Adeon coughed a bit as he watched Deed apparently try to crush Alex to death; you'd never have thought her willowy frame could have generated that kind of pressure. "You uh, called?"

Alex blinked; shell-shocked. That was the word he was looking for. "Uh...oh yeah. I need you to give me and Deed a ride."

"You won't be taking Bucephalus?" He was studiously ignoring the details of their embrace; namely that Deed had started glaring at him furiously.

"No, I won't have time. I trust Ghim, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to let him go it alone. I need to go to Wort's Tower in Moss."

Deedlit sighed as the two worked out their travel arrangements. If she tried to force Alex one way he'd just ignore her; it was worse than fighting, in her opinion. He could put a great deal of pain in the simple act of ignoring you. She just had to go with him, and pray that he survived. No, make sure that he survived.

"Alex?" Parn was a bit worse for wear; he'd taken a beating among the skirmishers. "King Fahn needs to see you."

Alex turned, relief on his face. "He's alive?"

Parn grimaced sadly. "...yes, but he's not in very good shape. We need to get him to one of the temples as soon as possible."

Unspoken was the clear request that they keep it short. Alex nodded.

Parn's grimace became only too clear when Alex arrived; Fahn looked more dead than alive. The firefly dust had managed to close the wounds, so if nothing else he wasn't bleeding any longer. That was possibly the only thing right about him; he was pale, wan, and drawn, like he'd just been released from a POW torture camp. He was too skinny, too frail. Even if old, he'd been a massive man, a strong man. Now, he looked as though age had decided to catch up all at once.

Still, his eyes were strong; his will undiminished. Though hearing his voice, you wouldn't have thought so. "Alex...as I recall, you made a promise to me. A promise concerning what might come at the end of this battle."

Alex frowned; he hadn't talked to Fahn that much...oh. That. "Your majesty, I REALLY don't think this is the best time to be parted with an artifact of clerical healing magic. Besides which, I don't think you're so far gone that you can't even hold it."

Ignoring the confused looks, Fahn shook his head, extending the sheathed sword. "Pharis' Breath has abandoned me. Rightly so; it needs a strong hand to wield its strength, and I don't think I'll ever have that again."

Alex winced; uneasy, astonished murmuring had sprung up from every one in earshot. "Your majesty..."

"Your word, Latrans. You gave me your word."

Alex sighed; he had. Besides, he didn't want to delay this. "Very well your majesty. I have to deal with Karla, but once that is done, this sword will be returned to the Holy Knights of Valis." Fahn nodded in acceptance. Alex gingerly accepted the sheathed blade; it washed away his tiredness, filled him with resolve.

"My lord? We're ready."

"Don't call me 'lord,'" Alex replied. "Karl, I need you and Wood to go and meet up with Slayn and the others. They'll know where to go." Waiting long enough to hear Karl's agreement, he clambered up the side of the wyvern, Deed mounting far more easily.

As they flew off, Alex began to sing. He didn't know why; perhaps because it simply sounded right. And 'We Will Rock You' probably inspired him a bit.

"_I've paid my dues...Time after Time  
__I've done my sentence...but committed no crime.  
__And bad mistakes...I've made a few  
__I'd had my share of sand kicked in my face,  
__But I've come through  
__And I need to go on and on and on and on_

_We are the champions – my friend  
__And we'll keep on fighting, till the end.  
__We are the champions  
__We are the champions  
__No time for losers, 'cause we are the champions...  
__Of the World!_

_I've taken my bows...and my curtain calls  
__You've brought me fame, and fortune, and everything that goes with it;  
__I thank you all.  
__But it's been no bed of roses...no pleasure cruise  
__I consider a challenge before the whole human race,  
__And I ain't gonna lose  
__And I need to go on and on and on and on_

_We are the champions – my friend  
__And we'll keep on fighting, till the end.  
__We are the champions  
__We are the champions  
__No time for losers, 'cause we are the champions...  
__Of the World!_

_We are the champions – my friend  
__And we'll keep on fighting, till the end.  
__We are the champions  
__We are the champions  
__No time for losers, 'cause we are the champions...  
__Of the World!"_

To be continued...

1) – Flaus, a warrior priestess of Pharis, showed up in the Record of the Lodoss War Comic "The Maiden of Pharis." It took place thirty years before this; the war against the demon. And yes, Flaus did in fact beg Beld to use his strength to unite Lodoss, to do away with the warring factions. Making him rather like Oda Nobunaga, when you think about it.

Author's Notes: Sorry about the update being so long in the coming; I've been working on some other stuff, and I have to be thinking in the right state of mind to write this thing properly. Hopefully I've recaptured my muse.


	9. Chapter 8: Vengeance

_**Chapter Eight  
**_Vengeance

It would have been impossible to tell, but Karla was furious. Furious, and not a little frightened.

Fury was understandable; her plan had been quite simple really; get Fahn and Beld to fight until they were too weak for their swords to protect them. She regretted having to kill them, but it had been necessary. Friends had been few and far between through the past seven hundred years, and she counted the two among them. Still, her quest came first.

Which led to the source of her fear. Her plan had been solely dependent on the chaos that would ensue from Ashram trying to reorganize and bring Marmo under his rule. Marmo couldn't pass through leadership without civil disobedience, without inevitable wars. The elves among others would have to be pacified outright, likely the others would run wild while they could. The humans would struggle to find the one who could truly command, and it was open to speculation whether or not Ashram would even survive it. Karla would have bet on him, though she doubted the others had the sense to realize his true potential. Still, it would be years perhaps before Marmo was back under one man's control, decades perhaps until they could mount any kind of significant assault on Lodoss again. Perhaps she would aid them when the time came, perhaps the allies would have her help; it mattered little.

But Alex...

Again, the fury. He had ruined everything. Tactical maneuvering was something that she had actually worked to suppress occasionally; people who fought with their brains were dangerous. He'd unfortunately paved the way for people to realize that they could out-think their opponents; it would throw the nice, simple calculations of strength she'd spent years cultivating completely out the window. More than that, he'd saved BOTH of those damned kings; she couldn't risk a strike against either now. Lingering, they gave their people the time necessary to emotionally dull to the loss; insufficient chaos. Besides which, Ashram was working surprisingly hard to keep Beld alive; she would have expected him to capitalize on the power vacuum.

All that paled before what he had done personally. He had established himself as a possible friend, a possible ally of the Marmo. He was the now-possible bridge between the Marmo and the rest of Lodoss; he was now the instrument of unification, the personification of the ideal she opposed.

Her hatred, her enemy had a face now.

And it was the face of the man she feared. He bore _Pharis' Breath_ now, he lacked the chivalry to hold back, and judging from his track record, he would have both the means and know-how to get past her hostage; no one else would dare to harm Leylia. He knew how to finish Karla without doing so.

Fear was not completely foreign to the grey witch, yet not in seven hundred years had Karla feared for her life.

And yet...

Alex was powerful. He didn't yet realize it, but his simple skill for making people unafraid was nothing short of moving mountains. If she could gain his trust...if she could make him serve her...

Karla was many things, but needlessly wasteful was hardly one.

And so she set about her preparations for the battle to come, a battle that would be fought with cunning and guile. She had to find ways to protect herself; not merely this host body, but her true form, the Diadem. They would not willingly kill Leylia, if that was who the child really was, but they would do everything they could to take the circlet from her head.

Slayn's magic was pitiful next to hers, though he had a stubborn calm that would bring him to the fight. That half-elf; she cursed herself for not checking the girl's potential more thoroughly. If not checked, the girl could very well rival her own power someday, and as a half-elf, she could live long enough to gain the knowledge necessary to wield it properly. Even in raw potential she was a danger; if Slayn was willing to try and tap her power, wield it for his spells...no. She could not underestimate either mage.

The priest was little worry, in her estimation; he could heal, and he could defend, but there was little he could do to actually strike at the circlet short of lobbing that mace at her. Still, the chance that he could give them, defending or strengthening them at the right moment...she'd need to get him out of the fight as quickly as possible.

The other elf was shaman-trained, a ranger; she would use her spirits to likely try and confuse the arena; she wouldn't even bother TRYING to attack with spells. She'd go for the strike herself, either hand-to-hand or with throwing knives.

Ghim and Woodchuck didn't concern her. Oh, they'd be tricky, certainly, but she could make any number of shields to blunt physical, material attacks. She'd just have to be careful to make sure that she didn't get distracted enough to let them drop.

Alex though...god only knew what he was planning. He'd keep them alive at all costs, but he might be willing to let them be battered a bit for his victory. He'd keep them safe at all costs; perhaps that would be his weakness.

She could only hope. His tactics confounded her, and she could not defend against what she could not anticipate. She would be helpless against what she couldn't defend against.

Not since the very fall of Kastuul had she felt helpless.

* * *

"You gave your word, Ghim!" 

"God damn it, I said I wouldn't do anything until I knew the fight was over. I KNOW it's over, so I'll be damned if I'm going to sit around here and wait any longer! Screw Alex! I'll do this my way!"

Chiffon glared at him. Sure, he was nice...sometimes...in a sort of irascible way...but he was also a colossal jerk. "You KNOW how fast Alex is, and how fast that horse is. He's probably almost here anyway; we know that he's not part of that train racing King Fahn to the temple. Would another day really be that bad?"

"HELL YES IT WOULD! Do you have any idea what Karla could do with the time? What if she leaves, or decides she needs a new hiding spot, a new little lair? I'm not wasting another five years trying to find her; I have to do this now!"

"Why would she run? She's more powerful than all of us combined, in case you haven't seen. We're the ones who should have the sense to run away, not her." Further argument was cut off; Slayn's hand on Chiffon's shoulder had something to do with that.

The mage looked hard at the dwarf. "You can't beat her alone, Ghim. Even knowing that the circlet is her weakness, even with a target, you're not going to stand any chance of beating her alone. None of us will, not if we rush in there headless. We need Alex if we're going to succeed; he's the one who's good at planning."

"And why the hell do we need to wait for Alex, huh? You're the sorcerer; why the hell aren't YOU coming up with some brilliant way to make this work, huh?"

Slayn refused to be baited. "It's because I'm a sorcerer that I'm useless here. Karla knows more about magic than I could find out in a lifetime. You and I both know we're going to need to find some kind of loophole, some element of surprise to defeat Karla. I think in terms of the next spell, the better spell; she'll know my moves. If she's really the Sixth of the Heroes, then she knows how to fight hand-to-hand as well. She knows what each of us individually can do. EXCEPT for Alex. He's not stronger, or wiser, or more powerful than we are. Certainly not superior to Karla in that way. But Karla can NOT anticipate what he will or won't do. If she could, she would have won by now. Alex is the only one who can come up with a plan unorthodox enough that she won't see it, and at the same time think up one that would WORK. And you know it." (1)

Ghim growled under his breath, but rather than stay and argue, he turned and...stalked really doesn't seem like the right word to describe his particular locomotion. Rolled, maybe. Anyway, he 'rolled' off to glower and mutter darkly. Slayn sighed in relief. Ghim was too quick for him, and he was at the point where he'd likely lash out if either of them had tried anything magically to slow him down. It was one of the primary reasons that he'd gone to forestall Chiffon. Thank the gods that Ghim was at least stalking AWAY from the keep.

Chiffon shook her head. "He's not a fool; he's one of the most sensible men I've ever met. Why does he insist on arguing it over and over again, when he knows what he has to do?"

"Knowing something and accepting something are entirely different," Slayn replied, seating himself on a nearby boulder. It was odd; she almost instantly knelt, in front and to the side of him. She was picking up the nuances of being a student quickly. "You weren't there when we went through the Forest of No Return; Ghim had a...vision, so to speak. An unpleasant one at that, of Karla...well, Karla and Leylia. What's more, you know that he's trying to rescue her, but you don't know why, do you?"

She shook her head. "I know that he cares a great deal for Leylia, and I know that he knew her mother, but he won't say anything else. I've thought about asking Etoh..."

Slayn sighed. "Leylia is the daughter of Neese, The High Priestess of Marfa at the great temple in Tarba. One of the Six heroes." He ignored the shocked look. "Ghim knew Neese for years, and her daughter as well. Anyway, almost six years ago, there was a bad cave-in, a mining accident that Ghim was injured in. Neese rushed from the temple to help him. That's when Karla claimed Leylia."

Chiffon's eyes widened further. "...He blames himself for what happened. He thinks that if Neese had been there..."

Slayn nodded. "I don't know if Karla could have fought and won against Neese; I don't know if she would have even been willing, though I imagine it wouldn't have hurt too badly. What I do know is that if Neese had been there, Leylia might have had a chance; maybe it would be someone else with that circlet on their head."

Chiffon shook her head silently. "The daughter of the high priestess; Leylia's quite powerful on her own, isn't she?" Slayn shrugged; it was most likely true, but he had no real way of knowing. Chiffon was quiet, thoughtful. "I don't think she would have stopped for anything, Slayn; it had to be Leylia. The power was there, but none of the skill or experience to use it. I can't imagine too many other people on Lodoss who would have fit that description. She wanted Leylia specifically." She managed a sad smile. "An honor to Neese, in a way; only the daughter of her companion was good enough."

Slayn started; he hadn't considered that. Would Karla view her possession as an honor? Likely she might.

Sudden wing-beats shook the clearing. They started, Chiffon yelping in surprise as leaves started tangling her hair. The wing beats died quickly enough though; Adeon only stayed long enough to drop off his passengers before lifting off again, throwing a glower over his shoulder at them.

Slayn coughed uncomfortably; the sudden bout of dust didn't do him any good. "I was expecting you on horseback, not on a dragon." He frowned. "Come to think of it, where did you get a dragon-rider in the first place?

Deed shook her head ruefully. Riding a dragon was uncomfortable at first; like being on a rowboat in a storm while they climbed, trying to establish altitude. Once they'd gotten to cruising height though, the flight had been a thrill for her. "Adeon was assigned by Jester himself to help us out; he did scouting during the battle for us. As to why we had him give us a ride..." she chuckled. "Alex didn't think that Ghim would be willing to wait all that long. He insisted that Adeon bring us here."

Wood grimaced, supporting Karl as the two of them staggered into the clearing. Alex had taken a while to get used to it, but he'd managed to enjoy the last half of the ride. He and Karl though...Wood didn't like heights. Not like that, anyway. Being in a high tree, or on the battlements of a castle or potential score...that he could handle. Being dragged a thousand feet over the ground at the mercy of some dumb animal was something else entirely.

Etoh frowned a bit. He'd been consoling Ghim for all of a minute when the wing beats arrived; he'd run as quickly as he could, fearing that Karla had loosed gargoyles, or some other sort of flying monster. He was relieved, but... "Not that I'm unhappy to see you, but what are you doing here Karl?"

It took him a moment to answer; he looked like Hell. Ironically, not just from the dragon ride. "Alex had me ride that horse of his, Bucephalus. He had me bring him up to Wort's tower in Moss. Then they picked me up and made me ride that crazy lizard here." He bit back a dry heave. "Want to know the sad part? It was more frightening to ride that horse; I don't know how (or why) Alex puts up with it." He sighed as Etoh chanted a quick, simple healing spell; herbs might have done the trick, but this quieted his stomach more quickly. "Alex told me that he needed my help for something; he explained some of what you guys are fighting, but he didn't tell me the plan yet."

"And what IS the plan?" Ghim asked grumpily. He was glad to see him, but he had a hard time believing that Alex's mind was on the fight ahead. Not with him blushing and spluttering over Chiffon's greeting hug. Though why in the hell wasn't Deed making any fuss over it?

Alex managed to extract himself from Chiffon's embrace; she seemed remarkably willing, all told. Frankly though, he needed all of his focus on the fight to come.

And somehow, once again, he was stuck planning it.

He was pretty sure it all started after he rescued the royal family of Kannon; now wild and somehow successful plans were considered the norm for him. Damn it, it wasn't easy walking that narrow line between insanity and idiocy! "I've got some ideas."

* * *

Ashram was...upset. Most didn't realize it, but those who did were being VERY careful around the Black Knight. And even if Ashram himself wasn't displaying a temper, the sight of their superiors walking on eggshells around him was sufficient to clue in most of the grunt soldiers that something was wrong. They in turn started walking very softly.

It was a very on-edge army that marched through Kannon for the still-held southern regions.

Beld's health had at least something to do with it. The Holy Sword had struck hard, and he'd been losing blood even while he'd been too high on adrenaline to really realize how badly wounded he was; it was entirely possible that his newly-shattered scapula had ended his days as a swordsman permanently. The spear wound in his leg was just as bad; the blade had entered along the muscle grain, so the muscle was in condition for walking; it had even missed the tendon. Alex's kick though had caused serious internal bruising on top of a cut that went dangerously close to his femoral artery. They'd patched it up as best as they could, but...it doesn't matter what the era, battlefield medicine is never particularly good. Ashram had actually stopped long enough to sack a manor house, just for the weak, distilled alcohol he was using to personally bathe the wounds...and they were still in danger of turning septic.

It should be noted that the entire army was shocked and uncomfortable with the care he was lavishing on the Emperor. That more than anything else was infuriating him. At one point, he'd tried to return the Demon Sword to the emperor, and the damned thing had tried to eat Beld's soul. The grim, sardonic smile that Beld had leveled at him when he took it back had spoken volumes; Soul Crusher was no longer Beld's servant. He simply lacked the strength necessary to hold it in check.

For all intents and purposes, Beld was a dead man walking. The army had pretty much resigned itself...no, not resigned. Many were overjoyed that Ashram had become heir-apparent to the throne of Marmo. It was the lack of respect, the blatant sneers at the emperor that were infuriating him.

It must be said that yes, Ashram had fully intended to be the next Emperor of Marmo. He had his plans, his ambitions, his desires for the fate of those on Marmo. He had every intention of succeeding Beld. Life on Marmo however had shaped him over and over again into a creature of extremes; he had no mercy because he could not afford to be merciful. The enemy you showed mercy to was often the one who stabbed you in the back. He did NOT do things by halves; if he said he would do something, he would do it to the best of his ability. And he had sworn his loyalty to Beld; he would claim the throne someday, but not because Beld was simply...out of the picture. Soul Crusher or not, he still acted as though he were merely the captain of the Royal Guards.

He would take the throne when it was his right. He would not take it away from Beld. His loyalty would remain unquestioned.

He frowned suddenly, reining in his horse. He curtly raised a hand, forestalling questions from his bodyguards. Two of his best-trained had died in the campaign; he still had eleven. "Keep the column in motion." He pulled his stallion around to head back for Beld.

Pirotess, the elf-woman who hadn't so much as set foot without checking if he was watching, was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

Oh, it was tempting.

Pirotess gazed calmly on the bier drawing Beld. Ashram had somehow managed to make him agree to not ride or try to walk; he chafed at being an invalid, but he knew that was really all he could do. He spent most of the time either asleep or gazing broodingly at something no one could see.

Pirotess couldn't for the life of her fathom why he was still alive.

Life was not something to be cared for if it was unnecessary, not in the cities of the elves. Beld was...superfluous. He was asleep at the moment. All it would take was one thrust of a dagger, one carefully stolen from a man who had every reason to hate the king, and the path would be cleared. Possibly the one male that she could bring herself to take as a mate would be the lord of all Marmo.

And when he discovered that it had been her, likely his first act would be to have her flayed alive.

She had no doubt he'd know; it was partly why she hadn't yet.

The other reason was simply that she wanted to see what would happen next.

And so, knowing perfectly well that she wasn't the only one who would take a shot at the dying king, she had elected to stand guard over him. Having given it some thought, she didn't really think that killing him would be necessary; he'd most likely be dead by the time they reached Kannon, either from his infected wounds or assassination. If those didn't kill him, the sea voyage would.

And it gave her some time away from Ashram; the man was being infuriatingly self-controlled. He wouldn't even OGLE her for god's sake! Why the hell did he think she wore that dress if not to control men?

"What are you doing?"

She started at the rough voice, shivering. Fear was such an odd feeling; it wasn't something she was used to. Turning, she prepared a confident explanation, and felt her tongue freeze in her mouth.

She was used to the androgyny of elf males or the rough brutality of most Marmo human's. Ashram...it was hard to keep her mind on him. He was an almost perfect synthesis, not the effeminate face of an elf, but not the bluff cragginess of a human. He was cold and hard and smooth all over; not macho, just inescapably masculine.

Granted, it varies from species to species, but in most mammals, it is the male that is the larger, more powerful, more dominant of the race. Even in those races where the males are subservient, they tend to still be the bigger of the two. So understand, Pirotess was quite used to seeing men stronger than her. She just wasn't used to feeling weak around them.

"I asked you a question, woman."

A bit of anger managed to work its way through her invisible flush at the curt disrespect; she might like a little spine, but that was unnecessary. "I was guarding the Emperor. You're quite well aware that not a few in the camp wouldn't hesitate to see him dead..." her voice trailed off at the look on his face. He was quite readable if you knew what to look for...and he wanted you to know. And it was all to clear on his face that he knew she was one of them. She began to wonder if she could outrun his sword-drawing technique. If Soul Crusher was still a bit unfamiliar...

Ashram simply nodded. If she'd been planning to do it, she would have done it by now; they'd been four days on the march, and just because he was entrusting others to guard the emperor, it didn't mean that he thought they were up to the task. They could have been...circumvented. This though...she could be useful. "You will continue guarding the emperor until we reach Marmo." He said nothing more. He did not threaten or offer rewards; it was unnecessary. She would guard him now because it was his order.

And it gave her a perfect chance to display precisely where her loyalties laid.

* * *

Outside Karla's tower...

Staring.

"THAT'S your plan?"

Staring and incredulity.

"Alex, there is no WAY I can make that kind of shot. Why not have Wood try a shot with his throwing knives, or Deed? She's a good shot."

Alex groaned. Ghim looked ready to either brain him or split his head in two, Etoh had started muttering prayers, Deed looked skeptical, Wood was resigned, Karl seemed terrified, and Chiffon WOULDN'T LET GO OF HIM. (He's the type who needs his space). "First, Karl, keep in mind that you're not shooting at a moving target. In point of fact, the most movement I've ever seen out of Karla has been her lips when she smiles; she is NOT the type to duck and weave and dodge. You can handle a stationary shot of something that small from a distance of one hundred and twenty yards; I've seen you do it. I'm asking for seventy." Well. At least he seemed a bit more confident, though it hurt to see people trusting him so...unquestioningly. "Look, I realize that this isn't the best plan, and maybe there are better ones. But I can't think of any; can any of you?"

Silence greeted that.

He sighed in relief. At least they weren't going to fight him too hard on this. "Look, the thing you need to remember is this; it all hinges on getting that circlet off her head. The ONLY way that's going to happen is if we surprise her, and if we can get through any defensive spells she may have cast. Big if. Don't worry about sticking too hard to the plan; if you get a shot, take it. She'll suspect something's up if we don't even bother trying."

Wood winced. "I don't like this. Not a bit." He liked Alex. He trusted him. That was the problem; if Alex said it would go that way, Wood was willing to trust that it would happen that way. And unfortunately, a big part of Alex's plan hinged on him getting the shit kicked out of him. "Can't you just charge her and get the damn thing off? I mean, there's got to be some kind of way to do this without you turning yourself into a human shield."

Alex shook his head. "I can't risk overpowering her. She's not too proud to run; if she thinks she's in trouble, she'll bolt, and then we start this all over again. This has to be done." He looked at them all; scared, determined, and worried all at once. Not quite how he'd expected this to go. "Are you all ready for this?"

Deedlit slipped over. "This isn't the end, is it?"

Alex looked at her oddly; everyone else did too, though mainly because they couldn't catch her whispering. She mouthed _the story_ at him, and it suddenly all clicked. "No," he whispered back. "This is just the intermission." He sighed as the seven of them rose. "Just one bump in the Road to Hell."

* * *

It was a relief to see that some of the canon evidence was true. In episode eight, Ghim had managed to go straight to Karla; she hadn't bothered trying to rig any traps in the hallway. That was apparently the case here.

Though they might just not trigger when those entering were wrapped in a mobile defensive shield. There's a difference between being trusting and stupid, after all.

Having managed to traverse a fifty-meter length of corridor in an enchanted sorcerer's secret lair without any ill happenings, it could be that they were a bit careless at the door. They paused just long enough to wedge the doors open; they needed an escape route after all. With that done, they entered the central chamber of Karla's castle.

It was then that the traps struck.

Did Karla really wish for them to be brought under her banner? If so, it was for that reason that she saw to it that her traps were non-lethal. Or perhaps she was focused on just one, someone who she had no desire to anger?

Slayn fell first; a sealed vacuum erupted around him, stealing his breath and preventing any effective spell chanting just long enough to knock him out of the fight. When the vacuum released a half second later, the implosion was enough to knock him senseless; not quite unconscious, but certainly in no condition to fight. Chiffon had been struck by a wall of air, sent sprawling across the chamber into the water surrounding the central walkway. Karla would not risk Chiffon's magical potential being used against her; she had to separate Slayn and Chiffon.

Another wall of air smashed into Etoh, sending him sprawling into the corridor. Stone turned to liquid around his landing point; he was soon entombed in solid rock up to his neck. Tree roots had erupted from the ground, grasping Ghim by ankle and wrist and dragging him to the ground. With no leverage, he was forced to simply lie there.

Wood was nowhere to be seen; he'd chosen to scout another route to make his potential assault, and had managed to bypass the traps. He was currently picking his way through support struts high in the rafters of the chamber, watching grimly.

Deed had been the only one to evade the trap tailored for her. At least it had seemed so. She'd leapt easily over the wall of air, the sylphs in the air warning her. Fading back into sight a mere fifteen feet away, she'd cocked her arm for a flurry of knives. She wouldn't have been too upset if she'd wounded Leylia in the course of getting rid of the circlet, but she never got the chance. The teeth of Karla's trap sprung as Deed was sealed in an eight-foot wide globe of water that coalesced out of the air, only to fling her completely over Karla's head into the deep water.

All of it misdirection; Karla had needed only a moment to make her move, and had only one true target to worry about. Credit where credit is due; her strategy had been flawless. Recognizing that Alex needed the various instruments of his plan to work together, she'd scattered them, hoping to lessen the possible aid they could grant each other.

It would remain to be seen if her plans worked.

Deed came up gasping. With nothing more than a thought, she burst out of the water, undine in the water catapulting her out of the way. Going for her knives once again, she froze at the sight before her.

Karla stood before them all, perhaps twenty feet away atop a pedestal of stone, reachable only by a narrow staircase of undressed stone, surrounded on three sides by water. The entrance they stood on was a platform no more than ten feet by twenty, if that much. Alex was the only one still standing. And between him and Karla now flowed a corridor of power the color of her violet-stained lips.

Her first response had been to go for Alex. The painful shock accompanied with the feel of solid stone under her assault had been quite enough to convince her of the futility of that course. With no other recourse, she set about freeing those around her, and praying that Alex had expected this.

Oddly enough, he sort of had.

Alex wasn't a fan of Parn; not really. He'd sort of liked him at the start simply because he'd been the hero of a story he'd fallen in love with. Then he found shrines to other characters, and started considering if Parn was all that cool, really. To make a long story short, over the years he'd come to REALLY dislike the stereotypical hotheaded youthful protagonist.

So he'd wondered for a time why Karla had bothered to try and recruit him, similar to what she was now trying with him.

Still, he didn't really try to fight it just yet. There were questions he had to ask. Though he was a bit surprised; there were supposed to be at least...well, they were supposed to get a few attempts before Karla started seriously fighting back.

There was none of the illusory ruins of Kastuul just yet; the only thing was the solid wall of violet energy, sealing the two of them in a corridor of sorts. Just him, and Karla.

She eyed the sword at his side. "Spiritus Pharis. I never would have expected to see the Holy Sword at your hip. Have you been named heir of Valis?"

"Don't even joke about that; leading an army is pain in the ass enough. A kingdom? I'd kill myself first."

Ominous, foreboding thunder can't rumble in a sealed extra-dimensional space. Just FYI.

She nodded regally. "You didn't resist."

He managed a shrug. "You went to all this trouble; it would be rude not to let you say your piece."

She smiled. "Shall we then?" And the walls disappeared. In their place stood a vision of loveliness that took his breath away.

When you hear the phrase, 'city in the sky,' you aren't really struck with the full majesty of it. You just see an island with sky around it instead of sea; cartoon images of floating cities, CGI special effects might give you some vague idea.

The floating cities of Kastuul were simply too grand to be real. Alex knew it was the capital; he couldn't imagine any nation creating something grander, nor could he see one tolerating being any place but the finest. It was like a great mountain of alabaster in the sky; the graceful, cone-shaped underhang of the city contained all the necessaries, the little bits of unpleasantness that you never realize are part of civilized life, and it kept them in something that looked like it should have been sculpted by the hand of gods in its perfection. Like radiating spokes of a wheel, piers rose, eyries for flying dragons and docks for air ships. The buildings though...there were houses near the edges, warehouses hidden away in the shadows of the grandest places he could imagine; castles and manor houses, keeps and mansions gave way to the temples as the slope of the city raised to a towering, shining tower that could not possibly have been solid gold and yet made you believe it might be. The stonework was iridescent, glass-polished smooth, a mixture of Victorian gilt and old Greek and Roman ornate carvings; the architecture was like a mixture of Venice, Rome, the Acropolis, and New York City at once; the skyscrapers here really scraped the sky. No simple blocks of glass steel and stone here; these towers were purposely carved to resemble crashing waves made solid in ever-rising ringlets, red sand-stone flames or solid-glass whirlwinds.

Karla smiled at the look of awe on Alex's face. "This was our greatest city once. The very seat of Kastuul, home of our sorcerer king-priest." She looked around, her proud smile shifting to sadness; she'd forced herself to watch the plummet of the city, forced every detail into her mind. She would not...could not forget the grandeur. She was the only one who could remember. "It was my home."

Alex couldn't get his awe under control; this place crushed you with its beauty. He could have believed that this was a city of the gods. Yet...he had a job to do. He couldn't ignore the sheer overwhelming majesty of this place, but he could at least make it less overwhelming. "Why are you showing this to me?"

Karla stepped forward, for once a woman rather than this...entity. "I have to make you understand. Wort wouldn't; he hasn't the imagination." She looked at him...her face was unreadable. "Perhaps by the end of the day I'll have had to kill you. Perhaps you'll kill me. I have a great deal of blood on my hands; I admit that now. But I need someone to understand, if only once." Abruptly, the sky darkened around them. "I want someone to see what I have seen. I will not let you judge me until you understand."

"What's going on?"

Karla looked around darkly. "I have never relived this moment outside of nightmares, not once in seven hundred years. I will not do so again; please watch carefully. Watch the fall of Kastuul. Watch the great spell, the attempt of our sorcerer-king to breech the mortal world and become not merely a servant of gods on earth, but to bring all of Kastuul under their rule in the Heavens." The power continued growing, ever greater; it was merely sight. They were not even standing on the city itself. Tremors wracked it as magic that normally flowed into the spells necessary to keep the massive structure aloft and stable flowed into the great magical working. Alex couldn't really feel the air charge, but he believed it; just the sight of the aftermath of the power worked was enough to impress upon him its sheer scope.

The most frightening part perhaps was the end; for almost fifteen minutes the city rocked under the strain, until finally, abruptly, all was still.

It was in that stillness that the city began to crumble under their feet.

Karla was silent as she watched Kastuul fall under the hubris of its king. Only when the city had completely fallen away did she speak. "It was only this city at first. But even a single city...this weight, this height..." she looked bleak. "South of Raiden, almost to the edge of Moss, was largely forest. The shockwave of the falling city played no small part in raising the mountains in the north of Moss, turning verdant forest into the barren grasslands that no nation will to this day claim." She shook her head. "The floating cities weren't really the backbone of Kastuul; they were really just connected palaces for the richest. We depended on those below us, men and women we thought of as slaves who lived as well as nobles do now. The devastation was thorough; all told, half of our food production, much of all the raw materials we needed to make life across Kastuul work were lost. That was the real great spell; all six of the remaining cities gathered over the graveyard of the Capital, and pooled their magic into a spell they hoped would revitalize the region, do away with the accident of the king."

"What came was the death of Kastuul."

Alex was quiet; the illusion had long since faded into nothing but a dark, dusk-like remains to mirror her mood. "Too much magic in one place?"

She nodded. "The floating cities could fly anywhere on Lodoss, but there was a limit to how close they could be. Magic flows through everything, as you no doubt know. The cities channeled massive quantities of it to remain aloft and charge our crystals. Too many at one place...there simply wasn't enough magic to go around. And so six cities fell; a fitting burial sacrifice to Kastuul."

"The rest you know."

She turned to look at Alex; there was no longer even the trace of hatred that had shown on his face despite his seeming cheer. There was...pity, a bit on his face. Understanding, more than that. "You understand now? I..." She steeled herself. "I have never once told everything. It is not simply because of the barbarians and their lessons that I do what I must do. I told you the truth; one nation grown too strong will destroy the others. It really is better that they remain weak and at each others throats. Animals spend their lives threatening for food; mere threats keep the peace, keep them from killing each other."

Alex shook his head. The sheer carnage of it all was too much to imagine; what-killed-the-dinosaurs level impact not once, but SEVEN times? He couldn't imagine living through the aftermath. "So what's this really about?"

Karla turned to him. "Weakness, just as I said. Do you think I could have kept myself occupied with merely prodding wars for seven hundred years? They aren't quite that common. No, much of my work is suppression; keeping the knowledge of Kastuul from these people."

"You're deliberately seeing to it that the former glories of your home can never come about again? What, do you want it to remain special or something?"

She sighed. "Alex, you were a child once. Did you climb trees? Did you ever fall from them?" She saw the wheels turning and managed a small smile. _Good boy._ "If you fall from a tree, you stand a chance of dying, but only if you climb too high. It is the same with a civilization; they have to grow very strong indeed to destroy themselves. You accused me of committing acts of vengeance against the descendents of the destroyers of Kastuul; I'm ashamed to admit that yes, there were times when I enjoyed watching the death for its own sake. But what motivates me truly is the need to save these people. Can't you understand that?"

Alex was quiet for a moment. _Over-protective mother._ That fit Karla better than sociopath. He'd been wrong about her being insane; mothers didn't need to be insane to do mad things. She could manage those atrocities if she thought them necessary for something vital. The pity of it all was that he did understand, all too well. Did he have the right to judge her? Not really. Did anyone? Again, no.

"The road to hell is paved in good intentions," he finally said, oh so quietly.

Karla frowned, the hopeful gleam in her face fading slowly. Alex ignored her as he simply paced, refusing to look at her as he talked. "You're an over-protective mother, you know that? It just occurred to me that descendents of Kastuul probably intermarried with the barbarians; the people of Lodoss are a mixture of the two. They're your children, in a way."

"Hardly my children."

He shook his head. "You think us helpless, foolish, and incapable of thinking properly for ourselves. I can't exactly say that humanity hasn't given you good cause for your stance. But this...Karla, none of this matters. Not your pain or suffering; hate me for saying that if you want. I certainly do. You suffered more than I think any being on all of Lodoss save Marfa herself could ever imagine. That's not an excuse; there is never an excuse. You've killed thousands in the name of protecting millions; does that make you a hero? Or a butcher?"

"I will NOT be judged by you, Latrans. Your hands are not so clean as you'd like to think."

Alex sighed; he would have preferred she just leave Leylia alone; he'd never thought a peaceful resolution could occur. No, it was time to make the cut. "I know precisely how dirty my hands are; they reek even to me with the blood of men I've cut down or crushed. Some I've killed with my own hands; hundreds, possibly. Thousands are dead through my actions. I am no better than you are."

"Then how can you judge me?"

Alex shook his head. "You don't understand something. I'm no better or worse than you; I have no right to judge you. So I will not. I will not tell you that you have to die because you are evil. I will not decide whether or not you are evil. I will not even tell you that it is for the greater good that I'm doing anything at all. I'm doing this for me, because if I let you go, if I leave you alone, you will go on to hurt others."

"And you said you wouldn't judge," she spat.

"This isn't about judgment. This is about the fact that if I let you go, knowing what you'll do, I'll be miserable with myself, and my misery will grow with every life you destroy in the name of your quest to strangle Lodoss in swaddling clothes. I'm not doing this because it's the right thing to do, Karla. I'm doing it because I'll be miserable if I don't. More miserable than doing this makes me, anyway."

She laughed aloud at him; bitterly, but she laughed. He understood. Oh, he understood all too well. "So you'll do this all for yourself? You're wrong; you ARE worse than me."

The Holy Sword cleared its sheath in a moment, and the illusion shattered.

The others were only now setting themselves. Alex could have guessed that an hour had passed; in truth, only minutes had elapsed in the time that it had needed for Karla to show him her truths. "Are you alright? Everyone?"

Various positive statements followed.

Karla glared hatefully down at them. She'd bared her soul, shown him everything that she was, and he'd spurned her. There was no love in her for him, but there was pride, and it demanded action as much as her desire to shape Lodoss. "I have no uses for pawns that refuse to be moved..."

"'Though shalt not suffer a witch to live,' so sayeth the Lord," Alex interrupted. "Though frankly he and I haven't always agreed; I don't always agree with him in any case." He watched as the violet aura brightened; blue/white incandescent haze. "Know that there is no greater sin than righteousness, so sayeth ME. I can do this because it's for me, Karla; I will do what I want, what I feel I must, and if I be damned for it, so be it. If I one day ascend to Heaven, it will be because I did what I felt right, and if I fall to Hell, I will at least be able to face the Devil and say that I will not deny my sins. THAT is my truth, Karla; I have danced my tune, and I will pay the piper. NOW STRIKE, DAMN YOU!"

Her aura erupted.

There were screams of fear, from Chiffon and (ironically) Etoh. Ghim, having finally gotten the shards of tree root off him, leapt forward, fully intending to take the brunt of the blow. He slowed to a trot as he realized that someone had beaten him to it.

Alex stared calmly into the river of energy that was trying vainly to sweep him away. He hadn't taken a fighting stance, he simply rested the point of the Holy Sword before him, his hands resting on the pommel. The defensive magics of the holy artifact did the rest, not merely blunting the attack, but extending a half-dome shield in front of him that covered and protected the entire group.

Above, Wood stared in shock. He'd been considering trying an attack when the field had broken, before Karla struck. He was glad that he hadn't now; she didn't seem to realize he was there, and any attack would have drawn her attention at this point. Besides, there was no way in hell he could manage a throw that could get through THAT kind of magical force.

"You failed, Karla." Alex didn't really like this aspect of the plan, but he needed to do this. He needed to make her lose her temper. And the only person she really seemed to dislike enough to explode at was him. Wunderbar. Sure, he had the Holy Sword now, but... "Fahn and Beld survived. You couldn't manage to successfully kill two tired old men with their fancy swords. The Marmo are still strong, so are the Allies of greater Lodoss. All you did was delay the inevitable, for years, if that long." He pasted a bitter, Gendo-Ikari-esque smirk on his face. "Of course, you're too stupid to realize how futile it was anyway. You can't watch the entire continent; it's only a matter of time before someone finds something you didn't bother to hide well enough, and then we're on the road to a new Kastuul." He forced the grin to remain as the aura intensified harshly; well, she was getting serious about this, but she was still in control. "What's more, you've been worrying about the completely wrong person. You should have watched the people with REAL power, not the commanders of armies. You should have paid attention to Wagnard, among other things. You were so busy playing chess with your old comrades that you never even realized, that you allowed the one man who can finish off the entire continent to run free. _You. Stupid. Ugly. Old. BITCH._" This was no smirk now; it was a childish grin; absolute self-satisfaction. It was the look you gave someone beneath you, not someone you fear.

Karla's shriek of rage was signal enough. The energy flared white-hot; there was nothing now but light and fury, so intense that even the Holy Sword was starting to feel the burn. Alex mentally winced. This was the part that was going to hurt. Raising the sword, he lowered his stance, and bringing the hilt to the level of his eyes, he pointed the blade at Karla, cocking the sword.

Somewhere in Karla's rage though burned a helpless hatred. She needed to end him; he hurt her in the places that had never healed. And if raw force wouldn't kill him in a satisfyingly gory manner, she'd use what WOULD.

In the maelstrom of power, it would have been nearly impossible to see the tiny, thread-like stream of all-devouring black that she spun. A spell that made even the life-ending power of her current strike seem moot.

A Soul Reaver.

It could pierce the shield of the Holy Sword; it was a concentrated strike, precise and deadly. It would take time to build the necessary strength, but that was no real concern of hers. They were in a stalemate...

...That ended with Alex hurling the Holy Sword at her.

Shock reigned for a half second as he flung away his only defense, but not long enough for her to make her move. Oh, the shield of the Holy Sword was forcing back her power, keeping them safe (something Alex hadn't dared hope for), but now it was simply a wall, not a fortress. She could strike around it now, and still have the time she needed to parry the stroke.

All this flashed through her mind in a tiny shred of time; she noticed at the last that the holy sword would miss, and struck.

The tiny black thread of Death slithered down the steps, and with a complete lack of any force or properly dramatic build-up, lanced through Alex's chest. He fell silently, feeling more surprise than pain. Not once noticing the sudden gleam, the heat in the citrine of his nine-tailed pendant. He was hit; that was all that he could realize.

It was this that brought Karla down.

The sword flew past her head, forcing away for a single moment her entire magical abilities; she was bared now. A risk perhaps, but none of them were willing to do anything but tend to the stricken, falling Latrans. Restoring her defenses would be the work of a moment.

It was in that moment that a single arrow struck, glancing off one of the two green cabochon-cut jades that seemed to mark eyes, forcing the circlet off her head.

Karla's consciousness was tied to the Diadem, but her perceptions took time to fade. The last thing anyone saw of her mind in Leylia was shock, that all the convoluted plans she'd defended against had never come to pass, that all along, Alex's plan had been simple, misdirection.

Ghim forced himself to rush to the Leylia's side; Alex was in better hands than he could give, and...and damn it, this had to come first.

He was the only one.

Deed felt like her heart was going to stop. Such a tiny thing, that spell, something she'd never been able to feel coming through the larger strike, and already Alex was paling, his temperature dropping. She could feel the heat seeping away from him; his pulse slowing. All that was secondary; she could see a vacancy in his eyes; he...he was gone.

"DEED!"

She started at the furious shout. "E-E-Etoh?"

He glared at her as he yanked off his outer robe; she was supposed to be the sensible one. "Give me your cloak. You too Slayn. Chiffon, go get Karla's cape; don't look at me like that, it's just cloth, it's not cursed. Deed, wrap him in your and Slayn's cloaks; we need to get his body temperature back up. I'll see what I can do."

Deed shook her head sadly. "Etoh, he's - "

"He's not dead yet," Etoh snapped. Sweet Gods, how he hated it when people gave up. Youthful optimism gave him strength. "Didn't he teach you anything? Remember Fortress Myce? He was crushed under an ogre, and got back up to keep fighting, pained, bloodied, and bruised."

"This is worse than an ogre; this is worse than anything he's ever suffered," she said dully as Chiffon ran over, flinging the black cape over him.

"That's not the point. You could learn from him; you don't stop fighting until you're dead. Even if it SEEMS hopeless, even if it really is, you keep fighting. This is exactly what he said to Karla; this isn't about right or wrong, this is about me. And frankly, I think you'd be less miserable if he died AFTER you'd still done everything to bring him back."

She flinched at that.

Karl came running up; he was still amazed that he'd made the shot. "I did it! I..." the smile on his face drained away at the sight of Alex, his normal coppery complexion paling more and more. "What...oh my gods, what happened?"

Chiffon sniffled a bit; she didn't think that Etoh could do it. "He...she did something right before the arrow hit..."

Alex's eyes snapped open. He ignored the sudden yelps and yells as he surged to his feet, only to collapse to his knees. "I..."

"Alex?"

He ignored the voices. This wasn't done yet; Karla had left Leylia alone, but it wasn't over yet. "Karl?"

"Alex, you need to rest..."

He forced himself to his feet, knocking Karl's hands aside, grabbing him by the front of his tunic. "Karl, get the box. The one Adeon was complaining about."

"But..."

"NOW!" Shoving the startled archer towards the entrance, he staggered off the entry into the shallow water. _The arrow struck on her...right side. It would have knocked the circlet backwards and to the left. Back and to the left; search back and to the left._

Wood clambered down, his congratulations dying at the sight. "You...Pharis, you look like a walking corpse."

"Out of my way, Wood."

The thief's eyes narrowed as he stopped him. "Alex, whatever the hell you're doing, you're in no condition. Get your ass back there; you need Etoh."

Alex punched him in the stomach as hard as he could, knocking more than the wind out of him. "Where is it? Where did it fall? Where are you, you goat-&ing whore-child?" He froze; he'd felt something. "What, don't care for my language? Blow me." The flare of resentment was stronger that time; it was enough to give him the right area. "There you are." He snorted in disdain at the sudden flares. "Yeah right. You think I'm putting you on?"

Chiffon stared, worriedly. "Is...Etoh, what's going on? He was dying a moment ago, and now..."

Etoh shook his head, amazed and a little afraid. Alex didn't look human at the moment; he still looked too weak, but more than that...he looked like an animal. One getting ready to go down fighting tooth-and-nail. It was the pendant that reminded him, the pendant and the glowing, golden eyes. "The Coyote. He told me something once, an old fable. _'When man is dead, and the beasts are gone, and when everything is as dark and silent as it was in the beginning, the last sound to echo across the shadows, will be the howl of the Coyote.' _" He shook his head. "The ultimate survivor."

Karl panted uncomfortably as he let the iron box drop with a clang. "That thing has to weigh eighty pounds (pant, wheeze, heave) at least."

Alex staggered forward. Deed and Chiffon started forward to help, but he waved them aside. Dropping to his knees in front of the box, he strained at the lid; forty to fifty pounds of iron when you can barely walk.

He started as lily-white hands grasped the lid beside him. He looked up to Leylia's face; there was no asking in her eyes. In point of fact, she refused to meet his eyes, and not for any fear of their light. There was too much shame of the past six years. Still, if anyone had a right to help him put her to rest, Leylia did. Together, they managed to wrench up the box's upper half. There were no hinges; instead, there were four tongues that would extend into the box itself, into four different locking mechanisms, each requiring their own enchanted key. Carefully, he placed the circlet in the tiny hollow within; there was one last flare of baleful energy, then the box clicked shut. The spells took hold instantly; anything that Karla might have tried was sealed away.

Having done that, Alex very calmly, with the utmost dignity, proceeded to keel over.

* * *

The Marmo Procession...

Beld looked on coldly; he had finally refused to stay lying down for a second longer than he had to. He was still being kept in a force state of invalidity, but at least he was allowed to sit up and watch the procession.

The past week had been hard on him, both mentally and physically. Soul Crusher and her sustaining magic had been a large part of his continued good physical shape. Without the sword, old age was starting to catch up. He didn't look it, at least not yet, but he was actually older than Fahn; maybe five years, but still. He doubted that it would be more than a month before his hair went gray, before weathered features gave way to wrinkles.

He was an old man. Getting old sucked.

What's more, even if Ashram would not admit it, he was the master of Soul Crusher now; he was the Emperor of Marmo. Beld sighed, easing back into the mass of blankets around him. He'd refused to bring anything as pointless as a cushion; they were making do for keeping him in comfort. It touched him, in a way; he would never have imagined Ashram to struggle to keep him alive when he was weak. Oh, he doubted the knight would have done the job himself, but he could have seen him just...leaving him to his fate. Beld wouldn't have held that against him.

Still, Ashram was emperor in name. He needed to be emperor in fact. "WOMAN!"

Pirotess seethed, but answered. She wondered at times if Ashram realized just what he'd put her in for when he'd assigned her as bodyguard and aide-de-camp for the former emperor. The man was a barbarian; she wouldn't have expected mincing words or submission from him, but gods be damned, she had a name! "Your majesty?"

Beld grinned; poking at Pirotess' temper was possibly his one remaining joy. "Inform Ashram that I will be speaking with him at the next stop."

She bowed frigidly. "I will have the message delivered."

"I told _you_ to do it, woman."

_Don't kill him; you can't afford to kill him_. Forcing a calming breath she managed to retain civility. "I was ordered by Ashram not to leave your side. So I'm afraid that the message will have to come from someone else."

"I'm still the emperor, wench. You will do as I say."

WENCH? Enough was enough. She stalked over, bringing herself face to face with him. "Not for long you are. And even if you were?" Her glare should have singed the hair from his face. "I am here because Ashram wishes you to remain alive. If it were up to me, I'd have killed you myself."

"So why don't you?" Beld grinned, making a brief puckering expression. Hey, she was close enough.

She snapped her head away from him, but retained a coolness of expression. "I told you. Ashram wants me here. He wants you alive."

Beld chuckled as she stalked away. Ah well, he'd made his choice. He hoped that Ashram wouldn't mind keeping him around for old time's sake. He'd sworn to Flaus that he would unify Lodoss; failing that wasn't something that he wanted, but he would at least prefer to live to see someone else pull it off.

* * *

They had arrived two days ago following a series of...well, if not necessarily unfortunate events, then certainly odd ones. It had all started when they'd first prepared to leave; Ghim had asked for a spare horse so he could take Leylia straight back to Tarba. The idea that he was just going to abandon Alex had come up, he'd countered by pointing out that Alex was in good hands regardless of what happened and that his job was to get Leylia home.

At which point Leylia had informed them that she was staying with him.

Chiffon and Deed hadn't been pleased. At least not until Leylia made it clear that her purpose was simply to see to it that the last person she'd ever hurt as Karla would be taken care of properly. At which point Ghim had grudgingly agreed to go with them to the Temple of Novice in Alania.

At which point Alex had woken up and told them that they were ALL going to Tarba, in northern Alania. Roughly two hundred miles farther than they would have otherwise needed.

He'd passed out shortly thereafter, though not before threatening to die out of sheer spite if they didn't take him to see Neese.

Lodoss, you must understand, is roughly the size of Greenland on earth; approximately eight hundred miles east to west, perhaps six hundred miles north to south. It's not really all that big, truth be told. Karla had been careful choosing the site of her tower; she needed to be near the center. Thus it was that she had built her castle on the eastern shores of Lake Luorana, just to the northwest of Valis and south of Flaim. Over four hundred miles from Tarba, the greatest seat of healers the nation possessed.

It was odd, in a way. The temple of the novice was nearer, though the straightest way there would require skirting the mountains of Flaim's southern border, the very edge of the Storm and Fire desert. Unpleasant, but not impossible. Not even when you took into account the bandits still roaming the borders of the young country. So why not?

Kadamos, the current ruler of Alan, hated Alex. He had every possible reason to hate him; he'd forced the man to hold his honor, to fight the war he'd wanted to avoid. The Alanian losses had been almost non-existent, but it didn't change the fact that he'd been thwarted. It was a wonder if anyone would even allow him into the country, hero or not. Mainly though, Alex wanted to go to Tarba because he was convinced that Fahn was at the temple of Pharis in Alan; he didn't want to detract from the care they'd give the king. Besides which (and he hated to admit it) he wasn't quite ready to give up the Holy Sword yet.

And so, they had been forced to take the three week journey west along the borders of Valis, then would be forced to cut through the passes in the eastern edge of the mountain before continuing north into Tarba.

No one had been confident Alex could survive the journey.

The first oddity had been the arrival of Bucephalus. He'd trailed them from the start, managing to make the journey from Wort's tower to Karla's, and then catch up only three days after they'd set out. The extra horse was welcome, though it was unnerving to those who knew him. Alex was the only one willing to ride him (in one of his odd bouts of consciousness, he'd mounted), but more than that, he was the only one Bucephalus would allow on his back.

AND HE HADN'T BUCKED ONCE. It wasn't much, but it was enough to put them on edge.

They'd made good time to the Alanian border; better than they'd expected. Slayn had even managed to get Leylia to open up a bit. Then they'd found a border guard of Alanian knights. Knights under direct orders NOT to let Alex into the country.

As it has been mentioned above, Kadamos wasn't too fond of Alex.

The REALLY weird part had been the arrival of some of the Knights of Moss; on dragon-back no less. Who had come with a shockingly frank message from Jester, stating in no uncertain terms that if Kadamos didn't let Alex through, Kannon, Flaim, Valis, and Moss were prepared to go to war with him.

If he'd been conscious, he would have been touched. And shocked, but that's not really the point.

Regardless, they'd loaded everyone a dragon-back, even going so far as to rig up a sling to carry Bucephalus, and FLOWN them to Tarba. Thereby cutting off nearly a week of travel.

It was arguable whether that was for the good or the bad.

Deed and Chiffon had managed to allow Neese almost three hours for a tearful reunion before they snapped and started pointing out that yes, Alex was DYING in the other room. At which point they two had immediately locked themselves in with him, Etoh being forced to rest (he'd been trying to heal Alex almost non-stop, and was pretty out of it).

Two days ago.

They hadn't heard anything from them since.

Chiffon stared uncomfortably at the pendant. Neese had given it to her for safe-keeping; she'd said something about it interfering with the healing. It was beautiful, if odd. Beautiful in its own way. However, her fledgling magical senses were getting progressively raw from being around it.

Because there was something entirely WRONG about it. Because with nothing to do for the past two days but worry, she'd started thinking it over, and virtually every time something strange had happened, she'd noticed the gem glowing. When he'd fought Ashram, just before he somehow transformed into some kind of grand-master, she'd seen the flare. During their time in the Great Dwarves' Tunnel, when he'd spoken about the gods, the flare. Just before he'd first regained consciousness, began his search for the circlet, that tiny, little, flare.

It could have been benign. Every time, it had seemed either harmless or actively helpful, but she wasn't sure. She needed to know what was going on.

(I was wondering who'd catch on first.)

She yelped, dropping it.

(Easy now, easy. Just because I can't be broken doesn't mean that I enjoy that sort of thing.)

Slowly, hesitantly, she extended her hand, picking it up again. "What...what are you?"

(What? That's rude; I'm intelligent and savvy enough to have a conversation with you; shouldn't that insinuate that I'm a WHO, not a WHAT?)

She sweat-dropped. Something that did NOT occur that often in Lodoss. "I...I beg your pardon..."

(Quite alright. I realize this is something of a shock. But anyway, I've been dying to tell somebody, and the spirits in this world won't come near me, and no one, not even Karla was able to detect me. That Wort guy might of, but I don't really like him all that much. He'd probably store me for research and forget I even existed if he got his hands on me.)

She frowned. It had been garbled, but he'd all but admitted that there was something wrong. "Tell somebody what?"

(Well, let's start at the beginning. Deedlit already knows this, as she saw it happen, and Wort was able to recognize the proper aura, but that's about it. Alex is from a different world entirely; not just a different city or even continent, an entirely different universe.) Chiffon opened her mouth, and closed it. She wasn't sure, but she felt like he would have made a shushing gesture if he'd had fingers. And the mental voice WAS male, after all. (The thing is, he didn't try to come to Lodoss; in point of fact, he didn't even know it was possible. He believed in other dimensions sure, he just didn't know how to get there. I'm part of the reason he's here.)

"He has a higher purpose," she breathed. She'd known, somehow.

(I wouldn't call it a higher purpose; you make it sound like he has some great destiny that's been laid out for him since the dawn of time. In point of fact, he just happened to have a minor connection to someone upstairs, that person was bored, and decided to see if the stuff Alex dreams about would really come true. Give him a chance to know himself, you might say.)

"Who? I mean, what's his connection?"

(...You're taking this remarkably well. Then again, it's not all THAT hard to believe, considering what he's managed to accomplish since he came here. You don't need to know who; you wouldn't recognize him anyway. As for the connection...do people on Lodoss believe in reincarnation?) Chiffon shook her head; rather than bother with a long, drawn out explanation, he...it would have been convenient if the pendant's spirit had a name. Regardless, it simply sent a quick burst of data into her mind. If it could have grinned, it would have; the shock on her face was simply priceless. (Weird, huh? Anyway, Alex was something odd in another life, something that my...patron, took a serious interest in. He's decided to see what happens, and as he agrees with the saying 'it's hard to find humor in a graveyard,' he's going to try and make it turn out relatively happy. Sort of, anyway.)

Chiffon knelt with a bit of a bump. That was NOT a comfortable way to learn things. "The gift of tongues? Did you have something to do with that?"

(Oh, gotten that far has...oh. You mean that thing where he can speak languages? Yeah, that was me. Sort of; I was just there to make sure the gift hit the right person. Mostly, I'm just rearranging, enhancing, modifying what's already there. I was the one who gave him that muscle-memory for spear-fighting, though that Lance's spirit helped. I've also been giving him subconscious nudges to do things, to get into the thick of things. Don't get me wrong, these are his ideas, his applications, I'm just here to put him in a position to use them.)

Chiffon nodded, not really listening too much. "You said that he was something in another life. Something important enough that all of this came about." She braced herself; it hurt, but she could imagine Alex as a demon only too well. "What was he?"

The pendant DID grin that time, a Cheshire-cat grin forming out of the cats-eye on the pendant. (Why, a nine-tailed coyote of course.)

* * *

_Scene: Unknown location. Unspecified room; seemingly a bedroom in the tower of medieval castle._

_He'd fought long and hard, and he'd held out longer than anyone had said he could._

_He was going to fail, all the same._

_He'd been born human a long time ago...come to think of it, not all that long ago. It just seemed that way; the flow of time was so messed up with him, it was hard to tell. Now he was _warai kitsune_, one of the first. The first one who had been born something else and given this...gift. If he was going to be fair, he had to admit that yes, he did consider it a gift. The power, the longevity, the sheer force of his new love for life...how could he consider those a curse?_

_It was the other parts that he hated._

"_There are better ways of going about this," came a new voice._

_Itsaqa turned, his jaw dropping at the sight. It wasn't that the man was impressive; he looked like a perfectly normal human in many regards; tall and slender, rangy and...hirsute. His hair was a sort of dirty brownish-blond, not quite tan, brown, or yellow, tangled and coarse. His skin was almost the same color, rough and weathered. He didn't have true facial hair, but the whiskers and five o'clock shadow were similar. Garments were simple, rough, and serviceable, stained rawhides. If you had opened up a dictionary to the word 'scruffy,' his picture would have been a part of the description._

_And Itsaqa, who had never seen the man in his entire life, nor seen any picture, statue, or depiction, recognized him._

_Old Man Koyote. One of the two patrons of the warai._

_The trickster god shook his head. "Fuck's sake, you're messed up. Kudos for the self-control; coyotes aren't exactly known for that. Still, what's the point? Why not just give in?"_

_Itsaqa swallowed thickly, though not from being nervous in the face of a god (all the stories agreed on at least one thing; the Old Man HATED it when people treated him with deference; he was sort of the archetype god that they'd used in Monty Python in the Holy Grail). No, it was more the condition. "I have a little bit of pride left. I can't just..."_

"_And why the hell not? Go find some wench who doesn't care and just get it over with. Find a whore if you have to; you can afford it. You've resisted for what, two years now? Look, I don't like to be the one who has to tell you, but this can't go on. Even you have limits; I figure two months at the outside, and you'll lose yourself completely, and it won't matter who's around, you'll sate the urge. So why not just do it in a way you enjoy? There's no point in torturing yourself over this."_

_Itsaqa managed a smile. "If there was a good, simple reason for this, I would have figured out a way around it. It's BECAUSE I don't know that it came to this."_

_The Koyote looked on, then slowly shook his head. "Renard and Mai are going to keep the race going; between the Changing and the inevitability of Heat, the warai'll continue. It just seems like a waste; no one could do the things you could."_

_He shrugged; he'd made his peace with it. "Maybe, but you're not here to stop me, and I don't trust Fate. Wouldn't put it past the miserable old bitch to louse things up at the last minute." He raised the blade; just because they were almost impossible to kill didn't mean that it took a lot for them to die..._

Alex gasped in shock and pain as he woke up. He'd actually FELT the blade sink into him; he'd been stabbed often enough in the past two months to recognize the feeling. _Where the hell did that come from?_ He tried to raise himself out of bed, but...something was wrong about it. It felt like he should be moving, but his body hadn't gotten the message. He froze; had Karla paralyzed him? No, he could feel the rough skin on the bottom of his feet catching on the sheets. Everything was still connected, he just couldn't seem to move it very well.

Everything still felt fuzzy though. He couldn't comfortably move himself; it was like he'd been tied down with rubber bands, or something.

"Oh. You're awake."

He didn't recognize the voice; he managed to laboriously turn his head. He recognized the face, at least. "Neese...I'm sorry, is there a title I need to include? I'm not all that familiar with the high priesthoods."

She stood from the ladder-back chair she'd been in watching him; Leylia was nearby, laying on a cot, asleep. "Just Neese. A man who can speak freely to kings and heroes needn't bother with any formalities with me." She turned to watch her sleeping daughter; it was unmistakably her, but it was still difficult to think of this young woman as her daughter again. She'd resigned herself to Leylia's death so utterly that it was virtually impossible to bring her back to life. "Ghim told me what happened; I owe you a great deal for saving Leylia."

Alex managed to shrug; if he concentrated hard enough, he could keep his body moving, but it was hard. "Don't. I have people all over Lodoss who think they owe me, I don't want to have you doing that too. I went there to stop Karla, not to rescue Leylia."

Surprisingly, Neese smiled. That man, Woodchuck, had said that Alex would try to pass off the credit. "If you wish."

Alex grunted as he tried to sit up. "I don't really remember all that much of what happened at the last minute. Or the trip here, for that matter; we're in Tarba, right?" Neese nodded. "Karla managed to hit me with something else just before Karl took out the circlet; I remember that much. It felt like I'd been stabbed with a needle, or something. After that, it kind of...blurs. I remember locking away the circlet, but that's about it." He frowned. He didn't have any clear memories of the trip here, either. He'd been hallucinating the whole time; more about nine-tailed coyotes, or something of that nature. "What's wrong with me?"

Neese's silence was deafening. Not to mention ominous; doctors aren't silent like that unless it's bad news.

"Tell me."

Neese forced a deep breath. He had his whole life ahead of him, the chance and power to become a king if he'd so desired; unlikely, perhaps, but certainly not impossible. She didn't want to be the one who had to say it... "I don't really know. I...I've seen quite a bit in my time as a healer, but this...whatever this is, it's new."

That didn't sound good. "Give me an idea, then."

She forced another deep breath. "I...I believe that what struck you was known as a Soul Reaver, a particular spell of black magic. Based on what I've seen, and what Wood described to me."

Alex felt cold. Soul Reaver. A stealer of souls.

She sighed. "A soul reaver is...rather merciful, in some ways. It's a spell of instantaneous death, a spell for assassinations. It's intended to sever that which binds the soul into the flesh, instantly passing the targeted into the next world. The body dies shortly thereafter."

"So why aren't I dead?"

"I don't know why. For some reason, you managed to hold onto your soul; maybe it was a residual defense from the Holy Sword. Maybe it was something else, maybe Karla miscast the spell. All I know is that it...didn't quite take."

"Didn't QUITE take?"

"It...it seems to have weakened the bonds, to loosen the grip your flesh has on your spirit." She sighed. She needed to say it. "You're still alive, but...Alex, the bonds of the spirit are meant to be ironclad. Loosening frees a bit of the soul, and that is not something you can easily bind again. I don't even know if anyone has ever tried. But...they're going to keep loosening, letting your soul out further and further as time goes by...and..."

Alex raised a single hand; it felt light, oddly enough. She didn't need to continue. The truly sad thing is that he wasn't really upset, not really sad. If there had been one thing Ashram had taught him during that week as a POW, this world was brutal, unforgiving. He'd been dragged to the edge of death easily a dozen times already, and the series was only halfway done.

So...There wasn't much left to say. He hadn't wanted it to come to this, but he could handle this, more or less anyway. He hoped that Chiffon and Deedlit would forgive him for this in the end though.

Turning, he looked at Neese; he'd sat up in bed without realizing it. With an odd sort of regality, he asked the only question that mattered.

"How long do I have before I'm going to die?"

To be Continued...

Author's Notes: Well, I'd say I've recovered my muse.

Someone once mentioned that it would be pretty easy to kill Alex in this story; just give him the chance to sacrifice him. The idea caught in my head, and I decided to write a Self-Insert in which the main character (namely Me) gets killed.

Bit of a spoiler here; I intend to write at least another book in the Chronicles of Murphy, and even I couldn't manage that with a dead main character. Who said death has to be permanent?

(1) - This may seem a bit arrogant, but keep in mind that I'm writing about a character who's supplanted Parn. Parn, the knight whose idea of tactics and planning is to make sure that you're armor's buckled on properly so it won't fall off while you're bellowing and charging your opponent.


	10. Chapter 9: Recovery

Chronicles of Murphy

Book of the Accursed

_**Chapter Nine**_

Interlude, Part 1

Recovery

"In eighteen months, I am going to be dead."

It had an odd sort of finality when you said it like that.

Alex gazed upward at the polished marble of his room's ceiling. It had been three days since Neese had pronounced sentence on him, and he was still bedridden, and if he could have summoned the wherewithal necessary for an emotional outburst, he would have been seriously pissed off. Oddly enough, the prospect of his imminent death wasn't what upset him; it could be considered morbid, I suppose, but somehow he'd been sort of expecting to die on Lodoss. For what it's worth, he'd assumed it would be either shortly before or shortly after the end of the series. No, his current state was due largely to the fact that he seemed to be suffering some sort of residual phantom-limb from the soul reaver.

He could move, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that his ability to move apparently stemmed directly from his concentration. He could have had four hundred pounds of solid muscle (compared to his normal rather lean 160 pounds), and he'd still be incapable of so much as lifting a large book. The maddening thing was that he didn't particularly FEEL weak. He felt as strong as he ever had; something had changed on Lodoss to make him a LOT stronger than he'd been originally. Anytime he tried to do anything even vaguely strenuous, it felt as though he were bursting out of his skin, as though his soul were moving, but the flesh was only slowly being dragged along for the ride.

Laboriously, he rolled over, staring irritably into the gardens. Complaining about his condition was all well and good, but if he was going to be perfectly honest, that was just the icing on the cake. He'd been an idiot, and THAT was what was pissing him off so much.

Ghim had been spending approximately every waking picosecond of his day trying to comfort and console Leylia, largely without success. He was a good man, he just didn't really know much about consoling women (we'll forgive Alex's ignorance, as he wasn't aware of the consoling that went on while he was on the battlefield). Etoh was recovering and preparing to begin an apprenticeship in the higher arts of healing from Neese, with the understanding that he'd have to leave or at least take a backseat once Leylia was slightly less of a basketcase. Wood...to tell the truth, he didn't know what Wood was up to. He'd assume theft and gambling (and thus cheating at gambling) if not for the fact that those things weren't really available at Tarba. The thief had stopped by once every day, or maybe a bit less often to check up on Alex, but that was it. Slayn was spending a great deal of time with Leylia as well, surprising everyone who hadn't seen the series. Alex had something of a theory that Slayn had been nursing a bit of affection, or at least awe for Karla, and now that 'she' was approachable, he was taking his shot.

As for Deed and Chiffon...well, predictably enough, they were spending a great deal of time bugging the daylights out of him. No, that wasn't fair; they were worried sick about him. He'd made Neese swear not to tell anyone about his imminent death, so they had no explanation about WHY he couldn't move, and why when he did move, it was in the manner of a man in his nineties. They would have spent the whole day with him if not for the fact that he'd gently made it clear that he didn't need a nursemaid, he needed time to think.

With as much 'time to think' as he'd ended up with, it was little surprise that he'd start contemplating his next move, and start reflecting on his past ones. And it had occurred to him that for the first time since he'd arrived on Lodoss, he didn't have the faintest idea what he was going to do next.

Because he'd finally done it. He'd made the 'Big Change,' and now he'd destroyed his guide for what was going to happen next. The episode guideline he'd been using was no longer accurate. If he'd just saved Fahn, if he'd let Beld die, things might well have gone the same. It was Beld's death that provided the catalyst for Shooting Star, the Scepter of Domination, and the confrontation with Kardis. But now the emperor was alive. Ashram would not be in command of a broken, fragmented army with a sword that refused to obey him, struggling to reclaim Marmo and thus secure himself to attack Lodoss.

There would be chaos now, but it could be contained. Ashram still had purpose; he'd fight and maneuver to keep the Marmo expeditionary force solid to try and protect Beld; he'd arrive on Marmo with power. And while Ashram might have been desperate enough to take Wagnard's advice, Beld wouldn't. The old emperor knew better; more than that, Alex had a hard time seeing him put his trust or allowing his empire to hang on trust of something that he couldn't wield. A magic sword Beld might be inclined to trust, or at least take advantage of...but a scepter?

On the one hand, a Lodoss where they didn't have to risk a battle with Kardis was good. On the other hand, this was a Lodoss that Alex couldn't predict very well. Alex believed in the butterfly effect, to some degree. Little changes could cause huge consequences; look at the mess that saving Fortress Myce had gotten him into. Still, what was far from a little change had been swallowed up in the larger impetus of the drive to war between Marmo and the Allies. He'd heard it in Soul Reaver 2; fate was like a river, and the ripples of a single pebble were largely swallowed up. To divert the flow of fate required a dam.

Some of the groundwork had long since been laid. Alex had no proof that Wagnard was even possessed now, but something told him not to discount it. That would have occurred at the end of episode four, if he remembered right, when he was back getting the shit kicked out of him as a Marmo POW. Somehow, he doubted that he'd managed to divert something that momentous. Heck, he was pretty sure that Narse's stirring, what had driven Beld to action, was Kardis stirring in the first place. So Alex believed that a few events were going to happen sooner or later that followed the plot; Wagnard was GOING to make a play for the Scepter of Domination. He was GOING to kidnap Deedlit for the sacrifice necessary to resurrect Kardis. And there was GOING to be some kind of huge showdown on Marmo; Alex was positive of that.

There were just two slight problems. Well, one slight problem and a huge complication. First, he didn't know precisely what route Wagnard would take, what route Fate might be diverted to. The complication was that, even if he figured that out, there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

He was still essentially a bedridden cripple. Not the easiest state for the would-be savior.

Rolling over again laboriously, he scowled. _Goddamnit, they've even gotten me THINKING like a hero now._

Still, the point needed to be made and dealt with. Parn wasn't in a position to stop it, and he was the only one who Alex could readily see going toe-to-toe with Ashram, Wagnard, and Kardis. Not so much because he had any chance, but because he was the only one with any degree of skill that Alex had found who rivaled himself in sheer capacity for self-delusion. He could think of any number of people who'd have better odds than Parn would have, but he couldn't think of any immediately who'd be WILLING to potentially throw their lives away if necessary. Not without manipulating the hell out of someone, performing very Karla-esque acts, and he wasn't that desperate. In a few months, maybe, but not yet.

That was possibly his only consolation in this whole mess. He had time. It was odd, but for a while he'd honestly thought that the entire Record of the Lodoss War was played out in a period lasting between two and three weeks; it didn't help that the producers and animators hadn't really bothered to give any sense of temporal change; there were no seasons, among other things.

But then, he wasn't even halfway done here, and he'd been at it for around two months. Just travel time, when you thought about it, made the whole thing ridiculous. Look at episode eleven as an example if you will, eleven and twelve. Parn was north of Blade, the capital of Flaim, met Wagnard, was nursed back to health, and then managed to head to Marmo as quickly as possible. Even assuming they took him to Roid to recuperate, it would have taken at least a week to reach Marmo and cross. Look at Kashue's problem too if you want; he had to leave Flaim, raise an army potentially strong enough to fight from the coast of Marmo to the center, storm Castle Conquera, and try to stop a goddess. Never mind the problems with raising, arming, and supplying a force, ignore the logistics for a second if you will. That still means they'd need at least a month to get there.

Why would Wagnard have kidnapped Deedlit and then waited a month to sacrifice her? Was it just poor story-telling, or was there something deeper?

He sighed deeply. He was in the process of giving himself a migraine trying to second-guess everything. Maybe Ashram would end up going after the Scepter anyway. It occurred to him that he wasn't the only one doing manipulations here; Wagnard still had his finger in the pie, so to speak, and more importantly, so did Kardis. They were GOING to manipulate events in their favor as much as was conveniently possible, but again, he had time. He just had to figure out what he was going to do with it.

For the moment though, cabin fever had finally taken its toll. He'd been an active guy back on earth; if he spent more than two days without going for a long walk or bike ride, he'd drive his family completely crazy with his own restlessness. Granted, he'd managed to enjoy the rest here, but he'd been even more active on Lodoss. He needed to put his body in motion before he strangled someone.

Taking a deep breath, he focused every ounce of concentration he could into his stomach and neck. Thought became motion as slowly, abdominal contractions managed to begin raising him out of the bed. Grimacing, he fed concentration into his arms; he was starting to go over backwards now, and he'd just end up with his legs in the air without something to brace against.

It took nearly a full minute just to sit up, if you count the time necessary to deal with the head rush of sitting up. Another deep breath followed as he carefully pivoted at the waist, bringing his legs down from the edge of the bed. Standing proved easier than sitting up had been; he remembered the strength of his legs more than his body, and the concentration proved easier there. Though standing and walking proved two completely different things.

He didn't bother putting on a dressing gown or robe; Lodoss was in the southern hemisphere of Forceria, so the far north was actually closer to tropical than anywhere else. He did pause long enough to grab his umbrella and begin laboriously dragging himself into the garden.

It was a beautiful garden, really. He didn't recognize the flowers, but whoever had planted and planned it had been willing to plant night-blooming plants. That had surprised him quite a bit; he would have thought that anything that bloomed by night would have been anathema to worshippers of Pharis. They did lend a lovely scent to the air; mixed with aged oak and the clean smell of the grass, it was beautiful.

There were unfortunately limits to his mental strength; his body wasn't tired, but he just couldn't drag himself that far. Which brought him to a seated position under a birch tree that had been planted near a small, tamed stream running through the temple grounds.

In the days to come, he would wonder why he never questioned the coincidence. Because as he sat there, the answer to at least one of his problems literally dropped into his lap.

In the form of a large crow, somewhat wounded and at the very least in a state of discomfort.

Had he been strong enough, he would have started at the thump of the rather large black bird that had only barely missed staining his night shirt with blood from a wounded wing. Then he took a closer look, and he began to stare, his jaw dropped.

A side-effect of the Soul Reaver had caused something odd to happen with his vision. If he didn't know better, he would have been willing to claim that he saw people's souls now instead of their bodies. There wasn't much about Wood to see, nor Jebra or Karl. He'd noticed that while Etoh, Leylia, and Neese were all recognizably human, there was a sense of Other about them, as though the thoughts and influence of their gods made a tangible effect on them. Chiffon and Slayn had powerful auras themselves, though Chiffon positively burned with energy. Deedlit though...

He'd heard that the High Elves weren't merely long-lived, they were wholly immortal. Having seen the absolute purity of her aura, the almost blinding light of her, he would be inclined to agree.

And this scruffy, bedraggled, wounded bird had an aura that shone nearly as bright as hers.

Hearing voices, he acted without thought. Or at least thought of consequence. Forcing himself into action, he flung his legs over the bird, a startled squawk clearly heard as he covered it in the tail of his night shirt. "Be quiet!" he hissed at it, some part of him noticing that the words had seemed strange. Likely he'd inadvertently used a language the bird could understand. Regardless, it stopped struggling, though a sense of shock literally radiated from it.

The earlier voices proved to be a pair of novice priests, tumbling into the clearing, staffs in hand. One of them, a girl no more than fourteen years old, flushed a bit at the sight of him. He WAS rather well-known; he was a celebrity patient. "Um...excuse me, my lord, but have you seen a crow flying through here?"

He shrugged, managing to make it seem effortless. "There was a crow, but I'm afraid he's nowhere to be seen." Largely because he was out of sight under Alex. "Do you two normally chase birds, or is there something special about crows?"

The other novice, a slightly younger boy, grimaced. "This one's been around for years, if you believe the rumors. Every time we try to leave an offering to Pharis, he swoops in and steals some of it. Always grapes, for some reason."

Alex managed a smile. "Sorry, but I haven't seen anything flying around." Leaning back against the birch, he closed his eyes and began miming sleep. Taking the hint, the two of them ran off, still hunting after the bird. Alex watched them for a moment, then carefully uncovered the bird. He looked at it oddly for a moment; its wing had somehow managed to repair itself in its time under his shirt, and the bird gazed back at him fearlessly, head cocked to one side. After a few moments, it croaked out, cautiously, Thank you.

"It was nothing," Alex replied, shrugging. It's a shame that RotLW was a relatively serious anime series, otherwise one might have been privy to the unlikely sight of a crow face-faulting.

The bird instead let its beak sag open. Gods of the Feasting, you can understand me? How...ye gods, what happened to you?

Alex shrugged. He'd faced down soul-devouring swords and ancient reincarnating sorceresses; was a talking bird really that odd? "Fought a sorceress and she tried to tear out my soul. It didn't take, not completely. So apparently, my soul's leaking away slowly, and in a year and a half I'm going to be dead." He felt no particular love for the bird; it was easy to tell the whole story to a complete stranger.

The crow was slow to respond. ...it didn't quite take? How might that have happened?

Alex shrugged. "I don't really know. All I know is that one minute I'm fine, the next there's some sort of black thread punching a hole in my chest. I start dying, then all of a sudden I'm furious that I'm about to die. After that..." he shook his head. "After that, I just sort of held on. I can't say why."

The crow watched as Alex laboriously forced himself to his feet. So, you have to use your soul to consciously drag along the flesh, huh? Usually it's the other way around; the soul follows the flesh until death. But then, maybe you really did die, and it's just taking a while for your body to catch on.

Alex managed a wan smile as he staggered off back to bed, the crow hopping along in his wake. "Thank you, that's really a pleasant prospect. I became undead through sheer force of will. Always a pleasure." He shook his head and continued.

The crow was quiet until Alex managed to get as far as his bed. Hopping onto a chest of drawers, it watched Alex settle into bed, boredom and distaste already starting to cloud his face. If you don't mind my asking, why are you still alive? Because it seems to me, the only thing that's keeping you alive for the year and a half you predicted is your will to live. If you just gave up, you'd probably be dead by morning. The bird shrugged, in clear violation of the anatomical fact that their skeletons aren't built for such an action. Dying's not really that bad, you know. From what I can see, you'd get to go to the good place. Whatever your culture happens to call it.

Alex shook his head. He'd thought about dying, and hoping it all turned out for the best, but he seemed to have lousy luck. If he did, he'd likely end up watching the world end from heaven. "This may seem a bit morbid, but that really is tempting. I just have something I need to take care of first."

What?

He laughed. _God, when was the last time I laughed?_ "I just have to kill Kardis."

The crow was silent for a long time after that. A bird's beak doesn't have anywhere near the flexibility of a human's face, or any mammal's face. It's almost impossible to tell what they're thinking from expression, as they don't really have any. Finally, it said, That's a rather tall order. What made you decide to do that?

Alex shrugged. "It just has to be done..." he frowned. "Say, do you happen to have a name? It seems kind of rude just referring to you as 'the crow.'"

He shook his head. I never got one. I'm supposed to wait until someone gives me a name.

Alex was silent for a moment. Finally, he said, "Cyrus. That's your name, then."

The newly christened Cyrus started. Uh...thank you. He forbore to mention that there were usually different circumstances for gaining a name. Any reason for that particular name?

Alex smiled dreamily as he spoke. "The mythology of the crow is a very old one. I learned that from reading James O'Barr. In Paleolithic times, people worshipped a fertility goddess that had a woman's face and breasts, but the body, wings, and talons of a crow. In time, the fertility goddess became a god, but the crow aspect never changed. As civilization began, the crow remained. The earliest Greek people worshipped an avatar of the crow; the titan Chronos, god of time. Even after the titans gave way to the Olympic pantheon, the crow remained, selecting as its new avatar Apollo, the god of light and truth whose name meant destroyer.

"Wotan who was Odin was served by two crows, Hunin and Mugin, or Thought and Memory. They flew through the world every day, and every night whispered the knowledge of everything they'd seen and heard to Odin, so he could find everything he needed to know. Go west, and Raven the Trickster shows up in every Native American mythos, from the stories of his creation of the world to stealing the sun to his gift of salmon to the people of the north. Keep going until you reach the far east, and you'll find him with an important role in both the Japanese and Chinese myths. The crow goblins, or tengu, were the trainers of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, scion of the Minamoto clan that would usher in the shogunate. In China, the sun was a ball of fire clutched in the talons of a crow with three feet; the crow was a powerful _yang_ symbol of the emperor. In the bible, Noah selected crows to be his messengers, and sent them to search out whether or not the flood waters had receded."

He turned to the crow, a sudden, old light in his eyes. "The name Cyrus means 'the sun.' If you look at the crow, for some reason, despite the utter darkness of this bird, there is always a solar myth. The gods of light and the sun, the thief of the sun, the carrier of the sun. The crow is a symbol of the stars in the sky, of the brightest star of all. I can think of no more appropriate name."

Cyrus didn't let his beak gape open, but this was only because he was frozen. When Alex had started talking, there had been something...otherworldly in his eyes. It wasn't just that they'd changed. It wasn't just that (though Cyrus wouldn't have realized it) his eyes had gone a completely new color, turning brown to red and then to violet. What shocked him was that while Alex had spoke, his words had resonated through the spiritual.

Something Cyrus had seen once before. Only once.

And so, knowing fully well that he would likely be damned for it, he spoke up. I can help you. With your weakness. There are methods that would make it easier to move; you would be up to full strength in a manner of weeks.

Alex froze. There was no way that something like that could just roll into his lap. Cyrus's next words were actually rather reassuring. There's a catch though. You said you have a year and a half left? What I can teach you is going to take away part of your life; you'll have to give up potential time for what's coming. And the actual method itself...using it is going to cost you even more time. You'll be borrowing against time, and it WILL come due.

Alex was quiet for a moment. Still, he couldn't refuse. "How much time? Let me put it this way; how much time would I have left?"

Cyrus shrugged. It depends. If you're completely normal, I'd give you maybe a year. If you're exceptionally strong, maybe nine months tops. There's also... he sighed. I'll be able to teach you to go beyond it, to become stronger than you might be able to imagine. But using more power means less time. You might be able to last a year, you might end up dead in two months. It's not like we're exactly dealing with iron-clad rules.

Alex thought on it. "I need four months. Maybe more, maybe less. And I'll have at least one big fight before hand, and then a war to fight. Can you buy me that much time?"

Cyrus didn't speak. He simply nodded.

A breath that Alex hadn't realized he'd been holding rattled out of his lungs. Here it was. It was crude and suspect and dangerous, and he didn't care. He had a chance now, and he didn't care if Cyrus were Lucifer himself in disguise. The fear he'd been unwilling to even consider, the fear that he might not be there to make sure Deed lived through it all, was finally unraveling. Fahn had told him he had great faith. Now he had hope.

"Teach me everything you can."

--------

"You wished to see me, my lord?"

Beld grunted sourly as Ashram entered the tent. He'd thought it over quite a bit, and he'd come to the conclusion that this was the only option. He trusted Ashram, he knew he had it in him to be a great king of men. What he didn't know was whether or not the Black Knight would be willing to do it. Hence the test. "I've been trying to figure this out. I've been watching the processions for almost a week, I've seen the troops bringing in the spoils from raids and the bases in south Kannon." His eyes narrowed. "We have almost twenty thousand troops left. They're rested and well-fed, they've got supplies and arms. So why in the hell are we still retreating?"

Ashram frowned uncertainly. It had been a long time since Beld had questioned his tactics. And he should have known perfectly well the reasons. "My lord, we have twenty thousand men, where we once had thirty five. We have lost nearly half our forces, and the bulk of them in a single battle against a force we outnumbered three to two. Our men are rested and well fed now, perhaps, but that does not change the fact that they have very little will to fight now."

"Then make them want to fight. We're not done here yet."

A tiny part of Ashram was shocked by the anger that rose to the statement. "My lord - "

"I said we're not done here yet. When did I say this was up for discussion?"

Ashram ground his teeth, but he had his duty. Beld was still the emperor and...and...

And nothing. This was ridiculous. He crossed his arms. "Give the men your orders, then. It will be interesting to see how many obey." He ignored the shocked look and drew out a map from a concealed pouch sewn into his cape. "There were fifteen thousand on the field of the Allied forces when we left. Unfortunately, they called in their reserves. Kashue is leading nearly thirty thousand men to harry us into the ocean, all the way back to Marmo. Half their force is heavy cavalry, and they WILL use that all-out charge method that hurt us so badly with. And we don't have the pike men or corresponding heavy cavalry to survive it. They have aerial support and reconnaissance from Jester's forces, and we won't stand a chance if they decide to start strafing us." He snapped the map shut and turned to leave. "I apologize if I seem insubordinate, but we have no chance of winning this war now. I doubt we'll even be able to hold much of Kannon; we'll be very lucky to retain even the harbors and landing strips. So I'm afraid we're back to returning to lands no one feels are worth fighting over."

Beld watched Ashram leave, and knew then that the torch had passed. Ashram might even delude himself into believing that Beld was still emperor, but what Beld had just witnessed was a king.

He grinned as he leaned back. Ashram was ready to claim the reins of power now. Well, that was at least one stone off his back.

--------

Slayn was patient. One does not gain any mastery of the art arcane without patience; it is a long, and often frustrating experience. Still, he could manage when he had to. Alex might have been the planner of the group, but that was more in line with his knack for looking in the oddest places for inspiration imaginable than any particular wisdom. So for the entire group, Slayn took up the mentor role, and took it well; calm, wise, patient, sensible, logical, and knowledgeable.

He was also on the verge of tearing out his hair.

LEYLIA WOULDN'T TALK TO HIM. Or anyone for that matter, but whatever gains had been made on the journey here were essentially non-existent. Something had happened during the process of healing Alex, and it had essentially rendered her catatonic emotionally. Stupid girl thought she was in an Evangelion crossover and was doing a Rei Ayanami impression...

He paused, frowning. Where on earth had that thought come from? For that matter, what was an Evangelion? It sounded like some weird sort of French fruit preserve.

He blinked. What was French? (Author's Note: Sorry, but for some odd reason I had to put this in. We now return to the relatively serious portion of the fic).

Closing his spell book, he slumped forward in his chair, his head resting on his arms. He could understand that it had been a traumatic experience for her. He freely admitted that there were likely a hundred little things he wasn't thinking about that could have been influencing her state, holdovers from the possession that might have slipped through the magical diagnoses that he'd performed in his spare moments. He understood, certainly. It didn't change the fact that he couldn't seem to do anything about it.

Hearing the sound of footsteps, he sat up, peering out the door. He sighed as Leylia swept past at an unhurried pace. If memory served, the only thing in that direction that she would have any interest in was Alex's room. He sighed again. That was his other problem. It wasn't like EVERY woman on Lodoss seemed to find Alex attractive. He was handsome, and polite, and a continent-wide-famous hero, and sure, some women found that attractive. He was also intense, taciturn, and almost impossible to approach unless he wanted to be. Well, that and the fact that he was absolutely head-over-heels in love with Deed. Or Chiffon; it was hard to tell sometimes. The fact that the two spent so much time together made it hard to determine which one of them he spent so much time staring at.

Groaning a bit, he slid back his chair and went to follow her. He didn't think Leylia was interested. Or at the very least, he didn't think that she'd fallen in love with Alex. Still, she might be misplacing or misinterpreting the guilt she felt for him as something else.

--------

It was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do. Opening that door...she knew. She and Neese knew, and only they did.

She'd killed him. He just wasn't willing to admit it yet.

She didn't have a choice in the matter though. There was nothing for it.

She opened the door.

It was quite a shock to find the bed empty; Alex was sitting at the table in his room, scratching away at a long sheet of parchment, muttering under his breath. _What was a typewriter?_ Taking a deep breathe...

"Did you need something?"

Leylia started; she hadn't realized he'd heard her. He turned to her, and another shock set in; his eyes weren't brown. While they weren't red, they'd taken the first few steps in that direction, being something of a shade of dark copper.

He appeared surprised to see her. Putting aside his pen, he carefully picked himself off his stool, standing to greet her. "Did you need something?" he repeated. "I thought you and Neese had decided to just try and let me heal on my own for a while."

She winced. They'd decided no such thing; he'd informed them that the treatments weren't doing him any good, and that what with the aftermath of a war, there were many more who needed their healing skills far more than he did. Though if they were being honest, he was right; they had no idea how to help him any further. "I..."

It was a shock to Alex when she suddenly slumped against the door jam, sobbing quietly. "I'm so sorry Alex...I..."

Words failed as she let herself break down. Alex's eyes softened, the copper taking on a subtle bluish hue as he walked towards her. He recognized this; he'd gone through it in his teenage years. She'd been denying the emotions, bottling them up so much that they'd finally just crushed her under their own weight. Now the emotion was all that was left. Gathering her up in his arms, he gently cradled her face to his shoulder, the night shirt serving admirably as a sop for her tears. They stayed like that for several minutes as she sobbed, the cries finally giving way to broken whimpers. Sighing, he brought her face up, and taking her hands, gently helped her to her feet. "Sit on the bed. I think it's time we talked about this."

She nodded numbly as he led her there. Something pierced the numbness abruptly. "Alex...you're walking..."

He nodded. He could hear the rustling of Slayn's robes and the tap of his staff outside. He'd need to play a bit loose with his phrasing. "The spell's finally seeming to wear off." He managed to keep the bitterness out of his smile. "You'd be amazed what you can accomplish with sheer bloody-mindedness." He let her sit on the bed, and wordlessly fetched out a small towel, dampening it and handing it to her. "This is about Karla," he said without preamble.

She winced, but it was a blessing, really; this was the heart of the matter, and this way she didn't have to try and sidle to it. "I...Alex, how am I supposed to go on? I...when I was Karla, I did so many things...terrible things..." she turned a tear-streaked face to him. "I _remember_, Alex. When Karla first went to Marmo, the attack on Myce...I never really went away. I saw everything, heard everything. And it's too big. Alex, I...I'm drowning in sin. And the only thing that anyone will tell me is that it's so wonderful I'm back, that it's not my fault. No one will acknowledge my sin. I...I can't atone, I can't move on, I can't do anything about it. Nothing!"

Alex was quiet for a moment. Mainly organizing his thoughts. He'd always assumed that when Leylia came back, it had just been her having to deal with the knowledge of Karla, of finding out that Ghim had died by her hand. Maybe that was how it had been in the canon, but here... "You feel helpless. For the past five and a half years, you've been helpless. You had to watch Karla, you had to know her schemes, her madness, her sins." He rested a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched. "Leylia, I'm not going to make some trite assurance that it's all going to be alright. I'll try, but I'm not god, I can't make everything right." He ignored the sudden confusion, the fear on her face. "And I'm not going to try and tell you it's alright. I have no idea what you went through, I have no idea what you're really feeling. All I have are guesses."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" she all but wailed. "Are you telling me that there's no one who can help me?"

He sighed. "Leylia, what do you want? Do you want to atone? Because if you'd like, I can always strangle you. I wouldn't enjoy it, but maybe slowly losing consciousness and fading into the blissful hereafter will make you feel better." He managed a dark grin at the sudden look of shock on her face as he sat back down. "No? Then let's get a few things straight. I don't know everything, but I DO know that the war wasn't your fault, and to the best of my knowledge, that's the biggest crime that Karla commited."

"Yes it is!" she suddenly screamed. "She did it, she manipulated them from the start - "

"What Karla did," he broke in gently, "was take advantage of a situation. BELD started this war. She just put herself in a position to manipulate it, to try and make sure it came out as a stalemate. That's ALL. Besides, Karla did it, not you, so stop cheapening her sin by taking it on as your own. Karla needs to pay for that, not you." He shrugged. "And as for my current condition, you had nothing to do with it. Unlike Ghim, I didn't go there to save you. I wasn't there for you, I was there because in the weeks I knew her, I came to rather passionately hate Karla. Rescuing you was incidental." He watched her face for some sign of anger, but she couldn't seem to move beyond shock. Sighing tiredly, he stood up laboriously, heading back for his parchment. "You just said that the only things people will do is tell you it's alright. You want acknowledgment of sin, of your situation? You were kidnapped as a child, and forced to observe someone else committing unspeakable acts on a continent. That's it."

"It's not that simple! It wasn't just a kidnapping, she used MY BODY to do those things!"

"If a thief steals money from you, and uses that money to hurt someone else, are you complicit? Is it your fault?" He shook his head. "Leylia, you need to heal, more than I do. And the first thing you have to understand is this; you didn't do those things. If you feel you need to atone for what Karla did, then do so. But you were forced; you really were helpless. AND THERE WAS NOTHING YOU COULD HAVE DONE TO STOP THAT." He looked her right in the eyes, his own eyes darkening to a fuller, more piercing red. "The first step to becoming strong is admitting that you're weak. You can't solve a problem that isn't there. If you want any closure at all, you need to come to terms with the fact that that part of your life is over, and there was nothing that you could have done to stop it. Or at the very least, that's my opinion on the matter."

Leylia stared at him. She'd come into his room to beg forgiveness, and hopefully gain some sense that he didn't hate her. On the one hand, she seemed to have accomplished that last bit. She just couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that he didn't care. For the love of god, she'd tried to rip out his soul...well, Karla had tried to rip out his soul while in her body...and he didn't seem to care. "You really don't hate me. You don't even care."

Alex shrugged as he retrieved the parchment and pen. "When I was in Zaxom, I met a girl named Liara. You know, she looks almost exactly like Princess Fiana from Roid? And yet I don't think I could ever confuse them." He dipped his pen, the conversation over as far as he was concerned. "It's a bit like that, I suppose. When I think of Karla, I think of the woman with the circlet. Aside from a rather superficial resemblance, you two are nothing alike either."

Leylia stood slowly, and turned to leave. This hadn't really made things any simpler; truth be told, she was more confused than she'd been when she first came in. It wasn't until she was halfway back to her rooms that she realized that Alex had her too confused to feel guilty. Of course, at that point guilt resurfaced, but it wasn't quite as unbearable that time.

She was dimly aware of Slayn slipping past her into Alex's room, but didn't think much of it. He seemed to be around quite a bit...she wondered at times why he bothered.

Sighing, she went back to her rooms. She had a lot to think about.

--------

"CHIFFON!"

The half-elf started out of her stupor at the sudden screech. It was odd; even when they'd argued, even when Deedlit was haranguing Alex, she managed to maintain a pleasant voice. That was the first time she'd ever made an ugly sound.

Deedlit burst into the room that they were sharing (space being at something of a premium in the guest area). "Chiffon, you've got to see this."

Something about the half-stunned, half panicked look on her face made Chiffon uneasy. Not bothering to ask, she stood, and surreptitiously cradling the pendant in her hands, she followed Deed at a half-trot.

It was generally assumed that when she zoned out like that, she was worrying about Alex. This would be untrue. Granted, she did worry about him, but she still had faith in him; he was damned near un-killable, and she was at least hopeful that he'd get better. No, what she was doing was communing with the pendant's spirit (they'd decided on the name Cain, from the Canis in the coyote's scientific name). He was giving her far more detailed and useful instruction in magic than Slayn could, though she continued her lessons with him (when he could be pried away from Leylia).

That was partly some of what made her nervous. She'd gotten to know Cain well, and was starting to wonder what would happen when Alex decided to mention that he didn't have his pendant anymore. When she had to give up her teacher.

Then she rounded the corner, a few steps behind Deed, and froze.

Alex was moving.

Seemingly unconcerned with anything but himself, he was hanging by his knees from a pole he'd raised over the ground, doing vertical sit-ups. He wasn't bothering with reps, concentrating on performing each one slowly, carefully, and fully. Not bad for a guy who's been a near-catatonic for a week.

Chiffon watched, spellbound as he completed a set of ten in the time it would have taken most people to do thirty. Finishing that, he let himself dangle for a moment, then placing his hands on the ground, kicked down carefully. Stretching out his back, he squatted carefully, extending his legs to either side, stretching out.

It was at that point that Chiffon noticed two things. One, neither she nor Deed were the only ones watching Alex; there were possibly a dozen other women, novices and priestesses, watching him exercise.

Secondly, she wasn't the only one with a faint blush on her cheeks. What did he think he was doing, running around without a shirt on? (1) You could see...

She flushed, turning aside. At which point, she noticed that Deedlit was staring at his...

"Deed!"

The elf started at the hiss. "What?"

"You...you're..."

She shrugged, though she had the grace to blush. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."

Alex, who wasn't anywhere near as oblivious as he was pretending to be, sincerely wished that he hadn't gotten enhanced hearing; the gossip was getting kind of embarrassing. He really wished that he could have done this in his room, but Neese had flatly refused to let him put together any of the equipment he'd wanted in his room. Hence the courtyard.

Nearby, Leylia gaped, though from the cover of a pillar. It wasn't like anyone was looking in her direction anyway. Slayn frowned as he came after her. Following her gaze, he peered around the pillar...

...And began twitching ever so slightly.

Leylia shook her head. "How can he do that?"

"It's scandalous, I agree entirely."

She started; she hadn't realized that Slayn was nearby. She frowned for a moment in thought, peering back outside. Oh. That. "No, not the shirtlessness." She'd seen quite a bit more trying to heal him, after all; you didn't become a healer priestess without getting used to seeing flesh. "Slayn, he was nearly dead two weeks ago. He SHOULD have died two weeks ago. And now he's going about as though nothing happened; he may not be as strong as he used to be, but he looks like he's recovering. My mother couldn't help him all that much, not really, and neither could I. And now he's done it to himself." She shook her head. "Slayn, I...I'm afraid of him. And it's not just the memories of being Karla, of facing down a being with that much hate. It's as though there's no stopping him, not because he's strong, but he's just that driven. Like he won't stop until HE decides he's going to stop."

Slayn was quiet for a moment. Some small part of him was glad that she didn't like Alex, but as for the other...She was right. What would it take to stop Alex?

And how far would they have to go if _they_ had to stop him?

--------

Kardis observed what she could of Tarba, the Marmo procession, and Lodoss in general.

It. Wasn't. Possible.

None of it could have really happened. Therefore, previously immutable divine law had been revoked, and deities were now capable of hallucinating, something previously unheard of, even among deities of madness. (Self-delusion has long been part and parcel of the gods. How else could certain fallen angels have tricked themselves into thinking they could win against someone named the Almighty?)

Either that, or her careless plans had been disrupted, even with Wagnard's work. Alex had made one mistake in his assumptions; on the battlefield, there had been two threats to Beld's life when the duel ended, a javelin and a lightning strike. It had been assumed that Karla had been responsible for both, but that was actually a rather foolish assumption, when you think about it. Karla was all about efficiency.

Wagnard had cast the javelin.

It wasn't all that surprising, really. It would only be with Beld's death that Marmo would be consumed in the mad goddess's aura; it was only then that Wagnard would gain the power that would make him so dangerous. A heavily-enchanted javelin was about all he could have managed at the time. Karla had been more inclined towards a proper sending off; she would have given Beld the glorious death she thought he deserved. Death by the hands of the heavens.

And Kardis's plans came to nothing. Beld was still alive, Ashram shaken but not unsteady, firmly in control of Soul Crusher, and a more unified front to defy the Marmo then ever before. SHE might not have anything to fear from an army, but her servants, those who would be necessary for her resurrection...they would worry about men over gods or demons, and any opposition would make things far, far worse.

She had to get things back on track. She'd been laying her plots since before Kastuul, all hinging on one thing.

The high elf's life that she hungered for.

There were always any number of idiots to mentally conquer; she had no need to have waited for Wagnard in particular. He had merely proved convenient. The scepter of domination was no concern to her; it could command her power, true, but she knew about the curse, and had few worries there. No, it always came back to the high elf. And there had never been a force powerful enough, a force capable of threatening their damnable forest to an extent that they'd have to come in force. It was only with the appearance of Deedlit that she could make her move for resurrection. It was a sickening irony; no priests, no dragons, no demons, no wars. It was all because one girl became fascinated with humans. That was what made it all possible.

Still, she had time. Things were not entirely out of hand. The elf was alive, and could be kidnapped easily enough. Wagnard was not without power; he would make the necessary preparations. She might have to try and extend her reach over more on Marmo if she was to engineer what she needed; putting the scepter in Wagnard's hands might prove beneficial to her in the long run. He'd never master it; it would simply be a tool that would make him more likely to bring her back. Once he'd claimed it, she could simply remove her powers; without her support, the scepter would consume him alive. Then it would be hers. The Scepter of Domination.

Narse stirred uneasily. It was loyal not to Kardis, but to Falaris. It guarded her because he knew that she was useful in the Night God's purpose, but it didn't mean he liked her. And the mad cackling that pierced the spiritual plane, dying out before it could go beyond him, was no pleasant thing.

Growling softly, the black dragon settled itself. The mad one was growing madder.

--------

Cyrus watched quietly as Alex continued his work out. It was having the normal consequences; he was getting slightly more muscular, his health (in body at least) was improving. It was also rather unsettling just how easily he had gotten the hang of the Flowing Soul method; he couldn't help but wonder if he'd been 'meant' to teach it to Alex. It wouldn't be the first time that the Gods of the Feasting had sent one of his kind out to shake things up. It just hadn't ever happened to him.

At the moment, Alex was doing hand-stand push-ups. He didn't have the weights or equipment to do a military press, so he was settling on that to build up his shoulders. Truth be told, he didn't have to perform work-outs to make the Flowing Soul work; he just had to get used to moving again, and any movement whatsoever helped with that. However, (and Cyrus agreed), Alex had pointed out that just because his body was secondary to the process now didn't mean it had no place. Besides, it would be hard to explain how he was able to keep fighting hard if one of his arms was too weak to hold a weapon or block a strike.

But that wasn't really the issue at the moment. Alex? There's something that's bothering me.

He stopped, kicking back down to his feet. "Am I doing it wrong? Because whatever it is, it seems to be working."

Cyrus shook his head. No, you're getting the hang of it. The method's fine, as far as I can tell. Of course, he was only relating something he'd heard of, not seen. Alex didn't need to know that though. I can also tell you that you've only lost about two weeks from the training. At this rate, you should be back to full strength in five or six days.

"Is it about Cain?" Alex had seen instantly that there was a spirit of some sort in the pendant; he'd been surprised, but Cyrus had simply told him that it was benign...mostly. And as Chiffon had seemed attached to it, he didn't see any reason not to let her keep it. It hadn't seemed to do him all that much good.

(Elsewhere, a certain spirit mentally 'urked' at the less than flattering comment he'd just picked up. But then he went back to dream instruction, grumbling under his breath that at least now he was appreciated).

Cyrus sent back a negative. Alex, you've got to be more careful. Leylia didn't see it, but I was watching Neese watch you, and she could tell something. Even if you try hiding it, there's always going to be something...something 'wrong' about you to a cleric, or anyone with any sort of spiritual ability. If they find out...

Alex grimaced. He'd been trying to keep...truth be told, he didn't know what it was he was doing, not really, but he tried to keep it relatively unobtrusive. None of the novices had noticed, at least. He also knew Slayn hadn't seen anything, so he hopefully wouldn't have to worry much about other sorcerers. Still... "You said Neese was the only one who noticed?" Cyrus nodded. "She's an experienced high priestess. So...maybe it's hard to see. Besides, you could be wrong. She knows I'm dying, and she knows about the Reaver. I shouldn't be able to move, and yet I do, and it's getting easier. It could be that."

Cyrus didn't seem to respond, but if he'd had teeth he would have ground them. That was the problem in a nutshell; there WASN'T anything visibly wrong, not even on the spiritual level. There should have been SOMETHING, for god's sake. As it was, the only thing he could tell now that Alex was gaining control was that he had some degree of spiritual discipline, and he was apparently stronger than you'd expect at first glance. Still, he said nothing. He just watched as Alex came close enough to finger his lance. That thing's dangerous to you. I should have mentioned that, if I haven't already.

Alex nodded absently. He could see Achiya's spirit now. A furious, blood-thirsty bird that always seemed bigger than could be possible. And at the same time, gentle. As gentle as a raptor could be, in any case. He accepted Alex as his master, and with the new spiritual gift, he could draw a great deal more from it. There might be a price to pay; he'd have to find out in serious combat at some point. Still, he'd be able to do things now that he never would have imagined possible.

Are you even listening to me? Achiyalabopa was a man-eating, armor-plated killing machine to the pueblos; he's not just going to let you tame him. He'll try and take over sooner or later.

"He tried that once before, actually. Right after I got him. For some reason, he hasn't tried since." Alex shrugged. "Cyrus, I'm a dead man walking. I have to live as long as I can, for now. But I know where I'm going to die, and why." He turned a golden gaze on the crow. "So when the time comes, don't get in my way. Because I'll have nothing left; I'll burn it all away if I have to." He grinned darkly. "I will be like a mad tiger, crashing down a mountainside. Every movement as though it were my last." (2)

"And god help Wagnard when it's time to face him. He'll need it."

To be Continued...

(1) – I'm pretty sure I explained the whole prudishness of Lodoss in chapter two.

(2) – This is a line from the documentary Iron and Silk, spoken by the kung fu master Pan Sifu, a national champion.

Author's Notes: I'm sorry it's been such a long time. Enrollment was a serious hassle this semester, and I couldn't find either the time or the emotional commitment necessary to write. I hope this was worth the wait; the next chapter will be coming soon. And will somebody please come up with some plot devices for other people to fall in love? So far I only have two ideas, and they aren't enough to explain everything.


	11. Chapter 10: Romance and Running

Chronicles of Murphy  
Book of the Accursed

_**Chapter Ten  
**_Interlude, Part 2  
Romance and Running

_What was it Alex told me? "If you want some good advice, the second you see him, cut Wagnard in half. Save us all a great deal of trouble."_

Ashram had been taught not to lament lost opportunities. Still, it was a near thing. He could tolerate the supercilious grin, the oily demeanor. He could bring himself to bear the deranged nihilism that occurred sooner or later with any cleric of Kardis. But the patronizing?

Killing off one fool priest couldn't possibly be all that detrimental to his cause, could it?

"I must admit, seeing his majesty alive did come as something of an...amusing surprise. I would have thought you one to recognize an opportunity, my _lord_."

Soul Crusher cleared its sheath in less time than it takes for the eye to blink.

It was tempting. It was BEYOND tempting; every fiber of his being screamed at him to kill the priest. For the first time, he was tempted to give in to the call of the Demon within, give in to the oh-so-sweet urge to shed blood. To gorge the spirit on souls, bathe in the blood of the damned.

It was the hunger that stopped him.

He did not lower the sword; there was a certain grim satisfaction in watching the mocking smirk on Wagnard's face slowly fade into panic. A shame that he didn't soil his robes; Ashram would have laughed aloud for it. Still, it was best not to indulge the sword's appetites; he had to master it now, and any sign of weakness or slackness would only hurt him.

Genuine fear was now on Wagnard's face; best to end this before he became tempted again. Sheathing the sword, he kept his gaze on the Red Priest. "You WILL keep your comments to yourself. Else I decide to reconsider what is, and what is not, considered traitorous on this island." His gaze hardened; Wagnard actually jumped. "He is your king. Do not forget that."

"Not any more I'm not."

Both turned to Beld, seated at his campaign chair. He'd managed to survive the crossing, though he'd been delegating virtually everything to Ashram. It was odd, but he seemed to be healing faster now that he was back on Marmo, as though the island itself was sustaining him

He grinned sardonically. "Ashram, this is idiocy. The people WANT you to be the next king of Marmo; do you have any idea how fucked up that is? A Marmo who people like?" He barked a laugh that no one joined in on; then again, they WERE relatively private in his tent. "'Sides, you've got the sword now. I couldn't wield it if I wanted to, and frankly, I don't. So. Since you seem to need some kind of formality, here. I formally abdicate the throne, naming the Black Knight Ashram as the new emperor of Marmo. Now deal with it."

Shock was written on Ashram's face as he looked at his king. Despite the minor altercation they'd had regarded going back to war, Ashram still considered himself subordinate to Beld. Or had, anyway. Formally abdicating the throne though...it was unheard of. No one gave up the throne; it was either claimed in absence or taken. He'd entertained thoughts of this occurring, but he hadn't expected it.

Beld was unconcerned. "We'll make it public once we get back to Conquera and you can get a proper coronation or some such idiocy. I just have one condition; you keep me around to see the unification." He had no doubt it would be done.

"My lord would do well to remember," Wagnard managed to break in smoothly, "that any claim to the throne of Marmo must meet with the approval of the priesthood; the emperor must be ordained by both the sects of Kardis and Falaris."

The look on Beld's face was that of...amusement. It was the look you might find on the face of a dragon looking at a mouthy terrier. "The only people who'll care will be the priesthood. And if they don't like it, we can just carve 'em up. Not like they do any good to the Marmo anyway." More disturbing than the casual way he spoke of murdering the priesthood was the almost hopeful look on Ashram's face.

Wagnard calmly departed; once out of the tent, he allowed a ragged breath to release as his hand slipped towards his throat. He'd felt the cold of the blade, but it had not cut his flesh. He thanked Kardis for small mercies. The experience had been eye-opening. He'd been openly contemptuous of Ashram's blade at first; what could one sword do against the might of the Mad One? He'd felt his own newfound powers rise in challenge, ready to smite the demon.

It had been the realization that he was too weak that had prompted his fear. Ashram could have killed him right then and there, and no might of the goddess would have been enough to save him. Perhaps it was time to consider other possibilities. Other powers.

Below, Kardis smiled.

--------

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Alex looked up from where he'd been securing the saddle girths on Bucephalus. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"What she means," Deedlit bit out, "is that deciding to spend the next three months gallivanting across Lodoss might not be such a good idea when you're still recovering from someone trying to tear your soul out."

Alex shrugged as he stuffed a pack of elvish travel bread into one of his saddlebags. Contrary to what Lord of the Rings might have you believe, it wasn't all that superior to human food; you had to eat just as much. The only real advantage was that it took literally months to go stale; even then, that just meant it stopped tasting good. You could still eat it healthily for another three months. "Deed, I'm not about to die on you." Not for months on end; it still made his stomach swim every time he had to live that particular little...oversight. "Besides, I'm...well, better than I have been for a while." Another stomach swim.

She sighed, but began packing her own saddlebags. Waybread, provisions, first aid supplies, and a rather generous amount of money that had come from Fiana as a thank-you gift for saving her father's life; they'd all been happy to hear that he seemed to be healing. Still, she couldn't take her mind off the problem at hand.

Alex had been dying. Whatever Etoh had said about fighting, she'd seen it for what it was. She didn't know how he'd held on long enough to reach Tarba, or what had gone on there, but he should have died. He was supposed to have died, and he didn't. But there was no trace of that now, nothing to see. By all accounts, he was in perfect health, not even the trace of a scar (spiritually speaking).

And that simply wasn't right. Even if he HAD recovered, there should have been some sort of mark, some sign that it had happened. She could only think of one possibility.

He was hiding something from her.

She'd tried to confront him about it, but...she'd never seen pain on his face like that. Not even when she'd...when they'd had a fight in Castle Roid. It was as though someone had just gut-punched him; he'd simply hobbled off, and refused to talk about it. Worse, he'd refused to talk to her for days. When they'd finally talked, he'd simply told her that yes, he was hiding something, and begged her not to ask him about it further. "Because it hurts too much to lie to you," he'd said.

She wasn't so sure anymore if she really wanted to know anymore. Because she'd admitted something to herself shortly after he'd started his recovery.

She had fallen in love with Alex Latrans.

Oh, she knew that she liked him; she'd known that from the moment they'd first met. And she freely admitted to being attracted to him; by human standards she was scandalous. She just hadn't realized exactly how much she cared until the moment when she had known he was dead.

And she would not cause him pain; not if she could help it.

"Are you sure you're alright Alex?"

Chiffon's voice brought her back to herself; they'd reached an...understanding of sorts. So while she didn't feel precisely threatened by the half-elf, she did feel the need to keep the score even. And so, she sighed, a bit more melodramatically than necessary. "He's already decided he's not going to listen to reason. We may as well just try and keep him from killing himself...again."

Alex winced.

Karl watched with half a mind as he continued his own preparations for their journey. Only half though; he had his own little problem to deal with now. "I really think you should reconsider this, Liara."

The peasant girl from Chapter One (the one Alex rescued) shook her head, fighting the urge to blush at the sight of Karl. "Absolutely. I've always wanted to see more of Lodoss. When you told me that you'd be traveling across the continent, I knew I had to ask."

Karl managed a weak smile. She didn't really seem to realize he was trying to get her to leave; she seemed convinced that he was encouraging her no matter what. He sighed. While Alex might have gotten a lot of the credit for everything that had happened (he'd somehow managed to solicit enough favors from bards that he wasn't being hailed as the sole hero of the mess), Karl had ended up with his fair share of fame. Not as the conquering hero, the sword-swinging knight, or the wise councilor.

Karl was an archer. By all accounts, that should have pigeon-holed him into the role of a coward.

Then the Coyotes went home and started talking about the battle. They started telling stories about the Alanian villager who had stood by them, through thick and thin, personally hauling the wounded out of the front lines even as he bellowed commands to the archers who were being charged and hacked into. Who had fought not for personal honor or glory, not to protect his people, but simply because he couldn't bear the thought of not doing anything.

It wasn't all true...he hadn't been heroic or anything. He'd just noticed that some of the peltasts were getting too close, or were getting in the way of pikes, or when the occasional arrow from the Marmo made it into the barrage. And as the rest of his men were busy, and he wasn't shooting...well, who else was supposed to get them out?

He was a celebrity now, a hero. He was an average Joe who'd gone out and done his duty, and was somehow being touted as a shining example of what a person could do with just a little bit of determination.

And Karl was now firmly convinced that Alex had been right all along. Being a hero sucked.

Sighing, he swung himself up onto his horse as he watched Chiffon and Deed continue pestering Alex; Etoh had just exited the temple with his own gear, though servants of the temple had already prepared his horse for him. Their current route had them heading for Novice to return the Holy Sword to Fahn (it still blew his mind that Alex had been wielding it, even if only briefly) and giving Etoh a chance to resume his studies, then making a beeline for Raiden in the northwest.

He wondered idly just what would screw them up first.

--------

Ariel took a deep breath. Then another.

And another.

It was patently ridiculous, all of it. Here she was, a princess of Kannon. Perhaps she was not the most worldly...but still, the crown princess of an old, proud kingdom. A crown princess had no business having anything at all to do with a thief.

So why had she been so eager to be the one to carry the envoys and letters of thanks to him...and Alex, but mostly to Woodchuck. He'd been the one who'd kept them safe, after all. He was the one who had been so careful, so nice to her...

She flushed, shaking her head. That was no way for a princess to behave. She'd just deliver her messages and leave. She shouldn't have come after all...

"Ariel?"

'Eep'ing, she turned slowly to meet Woodchuck's rough face. "It's good to see you again, Sir Woodchuck." She silently blessed all those dry, boring lessons she'd had in doing one thing and thinking another; it was the only reason she wasn't blushing furiously right now.

"I told you, just call me Wood." He wasn't sure, but he would have been willing to bet that every conversation they'd ever had had begun that way. Come to think of it, why did he keep having so many conversations with a princess? "What brings you to...oh." He wondered why it would make him so...exasperated. "Alex, right?"

She nodded, thankful for him taking the question out of her hands. "My father asked me to deliver this to Alex. From him." Flushing at her stuttering speech, she handed him a sealed, folded length of parchment. "My mother insisted that I bring this for him as well." A small wash-leather purse containing ten gold crowns of old Kastuulian minting joined the letter. "Lars wants me to let him know that as soon as he's able, he's invited to spend a month hunting in the foothills. And..." _Good lord, why am I blushing so hard?_ "This is from..."

Wood shook his head tiredly as he accepted Ariel's _personal_ letter. It didn't seem fair for him to attract so many women. Especially seeing as how he was about as sexually curious as Etoh. "I'll make sure he gets this one from you."

"Er...that's...well, not for...him." The last came out as a whisper.

Wood blinked owlishly. "Do you have friends here in Tarba? I don't know my way around all that well, but I can ask one of the novices..."

"It's...for you..."

For a second, it seemed like time stopped. Not quite as romantically as you might be thinking; more along the lines of the way time seems to slow down when something bad is happening. Wood simply stared at the cream-colored paper for a good minute. "Uh..." he said eloquently, "...you shouldn't have." Why in the nine hells was a princess writing him letters? "Really, you shouldn't have bothered." He blinked. Why did it suddenly seem like it had just gotten darker?

Looking up, he felt like kicking himself. Or beating his head against a wall. Managing to stifle an ostentatious cough, he instead flicked at the paper casually. _Go for misunderstanding._ "It's nice of you to write, I just don't know how to read." And best of all, he was being perfectly honest. "It's not the sort of thing that comes up when you're chained to a wall in some creepy, effeminate, green-haired lord's dungeon, after all. (Several miles south, a certain creepy, effeminate, green-haired lord sneezed violently. Considering that he had been leaning into the fireplace at the moment, that might not have been the best idea. The burns healed without scarring, though he refused to be seen in public for the subsequent month it took for his eyebrows to grow back.(1))

Ariel looked up, her flush receding. "Oh, I'm sorry. I...I'm sure that someone in the temple could..." _read it to you. Read my personal letter_... "on second thought, maybe I should just - "

With a flick of his wrist, he made it disappear up his sleeve, to a slightly startled yelp from Ariel. "Thanks, but I think I'll keep it. Words are nice, but the sentiment's enough." He watched her for a moment, in thought. Granted, she was a princess. And young enough to be...well, if he'd started a bit early, she could have been his daughter. Still, it was pretty obvious that she had no idea what she was doing outside of a palace. That wouldn't do for a potential ruler; she had no know what went on amongst her people. And a bit of familiarity with the thieves, informants, and smugglers of the world couldn't hurt, could it?

Especially in Tarba; it was a great place to start an education in sleaze. (Well, if you were going to try and ease someone into it, anyway; the closest thing around here to a sleazy tavern was the inn where the innkeeper's daughter sang love songs in an off-the-shoulder blouse.) While the most famous/important location was indeed the great temple of Marfa, there were quite a few other industries here; merchants, textiles, hardwood, trading...you name it.

So while he probably wouldn't get a chance to introduce her to say, barroom brawls or harlots, he still had a reasonable chance of showing her a common room and 'the fare of the lower people,' as she had once called it.

"So...have any plans for the evening?"

--------

Chiffon looked around herself in a daze. "How did this happen again?"

Deedlit winced slightly as one of the girls surrounding them bandaged her arm. It wasn't a serious wound, and considering that elves didn't scar, it wouldn't be any concern in a few weeks. It still hurt though. She smiled immediately at the girl in question though; the poor thing was one of the handful who knew anything about healing and caring for the wounded, and had been on her feet nearly the whole night. And it didn't look like it was over yet. "We let ourselves get caught up in A...in his lunacy." She sighed as the girl finished the field-dressing; she wished, not for the first time, that Etoh had decided to come with them.

Chiffon managed a bit of a giggle at that, but it was strained; for the first time, she was regretting attaching herself to Alex. Truth be told, she was a bit miffed with him (another first).

She'd been thrilled to hear that they were going to visit Raiden; it was the oldest city in all of Lodoss, dating back to the period of Kastuul. Granted, it had been largely a penal colony for them, that didn't change the fact that it was the only place on Lodoss where surviving Kastuulian architecture and roads survived. It was also the legendary free city, a place where more wonders and bits of glory could be found than anywhere else on Lodoss; not even Alania, the oldest of the true nations could boast as much history, not even the guild of Sorcerers could lay claim to as much lore and knowledge as the Free City.

And he'd dragged them to the side for this stupid rescue mission.

If she were being fair, it wasn't JUST his fault. Karl had been the one to hear about the fleets of slavers that ran galleys along the northern coasts of Lodoss. Like the old Barbary pirates of earth, their most important spoils had been the men they forced to row their ships in brutal forced trips of raiding and plunder, both on coastal vessels and fleets. Of course, the pirates/slavers were businessmen in their own right. Successful ones, truth be told. And you don't get to be successful throwing away potential resources.

In short, if you hit and completely capture a coastal town, you don't just leave the women and children behind. They're worth something.

She glared cutely at the archer as he continued about tirelessly, gathering bandages here, handing out nearly inedible ship-board ration bread (thankfully, they didn't have to dip into their own rations), seeing to blankets and the fires, the remains of scuttled ships and driftwood piles serving as fuel. He was both officially and unofficially the hero here, that was clear.

Alex dropped to the ground besides Deedlit and Chiffon, stripped to the waist. "I don't know where he gets his energy. He's outlasting ME, for crying out loud."

Chiffon turned a glare on him too, though it was a bit softer. She'd known that he wouldn't have left them alone after hearing it, but he'd been quiet enough that she could pretend. "You were badly injured not too long ago, remember? Maybe we shouldn't keep doing this sort of thing."

Alex gave her an unreadable look. "You think we did the wrong thing?" he finally asked.

Chiffon sighed. "No. And I don't think we could have done anything else; I couldn't have lived with myself if I knew and ignored them. I just...I wish someone else had done it."

He managed a grin. "Welcome to my world."

He was hiding it, but he was worried. He'd had to work a lot harder than he'd expected. It had been a bit of a surprise when Karl took charge, but a welcome one, truth be told. Alex had done most of the work; well, sort of. Okay, Cyrus had been the one to scout out the location and figure out when the best time to strike would be, but Alex had claimed it to be him; Cyrus hated the spotlight even more than Alex did, impossible as it seemed. It had been Alex who had swam out that night with an axe, auger, and bolt cutters, drilling slow leaks into the three galleys anchored half a mile off the beach. He'd been the one to sneak aboard and start clipping off the shackles, or at least the chains where they attached to the rowing benches. And of course, he'd been the one to 'accidentally' leave a door to a weapons supply room open.

It hadn't been all that bad...no, that was retarded. In the battles against Marmo, or his fights against Ashram, he'd felt fine. Hell, he doubted there was a single moment in his life outside of fighting where he felt more alive. But this?

He had a feeling that he finally understood why Cyrus had been so hesitant to teach him the Flowing Soul. It felt wrong. Bone-deep, impossibly WRONG.

He hadn't noticed it at first, not just doing gym exercises, but with the fight against the slavers, it had clicked.

He hadn't felt cold.

He'd swum half a mile through oceanic water weighed down with steel tools and weapons, and he hadn't noticed any cold. What he HAD noticed when he got on board though, was that his hands were shaking, his skin covered in gooseflesh. He HAD gotten cold, he just didn't notice it. Oh, it had started to penetrate a few seconds later, but it didn't change the fact that for one panicky instant, it hadn't felt like his body, it had felt like ill-fitting clothes.

Was that what he had to look forward to? Four months of phantom-limb, the sensation of his soul dragging his flesh along for the ride with every motion?

He banished the thoughts. He'd deal with it when the time came. Besides, it looked like something was going on.

Karl coughed nervously as he staggered over. He hadn't expected fatigue to just...crash over him like that. Nor had he expected scantily-clad pleasure slaves to rush to his side; he wasn't positive, but he thought that Liara was lecturing them. He groaned painfully as he sank to the sands beside them. "Remind me not to do something like this again."

Deedlit managed a light chuckle. "We elves try as hard as we can to stay out of human affairs, or any affairs, for that matter. Starting to see elvish wisdom?"

"Maybe," Karl admitted. "I mean, four warriors and a peasant girl against THAT many pirates? I think my common sense has abandoned me."

"It happens," Alex said idly. Looking over the milling people, he frowned. "Something just occurred to me. Where exactly would they have gone? I don't exactly recall seeing slaves in Valis, or Alania."

Karl grimaced. "...Alex, the thing you have to understand is that most of Lodoss is still undeveloped. At least as far as humans are concerned," he amended with an apologetic glance to Deed. "Valis, Kannon, Alania, Moss, Flaim...they're powerful, and great nations sure, but they only cover about half of the landmass of Lodoss. There's a LOT of places out here where there isn't a ruler or king to enforce laws."

Alex digested that in silence. "So in other words, slavery exists in the backwoods."

Karl sighed. "It's not widespread, but there are communities, cults, enclaves...most people don't like to talk about it. Most of them tribes in the Storm and Fire desert; they started enslaving their own people, the slaves got free, and started enslaving different people. It caught on." He shook his head. "Flaim has laws against total slavery, but there are indentured servants and lifetime servants who may as well be slaves. They're treated well, and they COULD leave if they wanted, but to what? For them, it's better to be slaves." This time, a grimace came across his face. "And then at the other end of the spectrum, we have dear old Alania. Where slavery is illegal, and has been for centuries. Though it doesn't keep some of our less scrupulous lords from buying a few on the sly." He turned a dark look on Alex. "I'm sure you can imagine what they're used for."

Alex ground his teeth audibly. "...yeah. I can imagine."

Karl looked over the people. "Truth be told, I think I like the desert tribe way of doing it better. If they catch you, and Kashue doesn't get wind of it and make them set you free, they work you hard for the rest of your life, like cattle or oxen. Still, they leave you with a shred of dignity, a modicum of respect. And they do make sure to keep you alive."

Alex was quiet. "It's like drugs, or any other vice. If it's out in the open, they can regulate it. And if it's not taboo, there's less chance of someone perverting it further." He turned to mirror Karl's look over the throng. "At least they're honest in their sin. Doesn't make it right, but I prefer people who have the integrity to be honest in their evil."

"Is that why you hated Karla so much?" Chiffon asked.

"...maybe that's part of it."

--------

There are certain circumstances that we never expect to find ourselves in. It's usually a safe bet to assume that we won't, for no apparent reason, be possessed by demons. Just for example. Most of us won't be taken hostage, or be involved in a terrorist attack. Very few of us will find ourselves in random, dimension-hopping knick-knack shops that catapult us into our favorite anime series in which we discover that it's not really all fun-and-games and end up with our souls leaking from the flesh...ahem. Anyway, some things just aren't likely to happen.

Case in point: If you had told Woodchuck that he would spend his evening trying to drag crown princess Ariel of Kannon back to a room at the temple of Marfa in Tarba, fending off kisses from a (drunk) amorous seventeen-year-old, he would have bopped you in the head.

Now?

Straining away from the giggling little girl, he was...ambivalent, about the whole thing. Okay, granted it was kind of creepy to have a girl coming on to you who was literally young enough to be your daughter. Granted, he would have had to start trying right around age sixteen, but the point remained. Granted, relationships and even marriages with that kind of an age gap weren't unheard of, particularly where royalty was concerned. Though having an attentive, attractive female of the species showing an interest under ANY circumstances was nice.

Ariel sighed as she nestled into Wood's arms. She'd been nervous at first; she'd never been in a tavern before. It had been something of a surprise that so many people knew him, surprising and a bit intimidating. The rather friendly (and decidedly attractive) barmaids certainly didn't help either. Though there had been that rather kind young man who'd insisted on her having wine. She'd never even had to ask for a refill. Or when she decided that she needed to try an ale...or five...

She still didn't understand why Woodchuck had felt the need to take the man aside.

For his part, he simply chanted under his breath, "She's too young, she's too young, she's too young..." and prayed that nobody would find him before he could come up with a decent explanation.

"...I certainly hope your intentions are honorable."

He nearly tripped, the voice was so sudden. Turning his head, he managed a weak, sort of sickly grin at the clearly-amused Neese. "Someone needs to teach this girl when to stop."

The priestess shook her head as she took over, leading the way. "We assumed the princess might want to stay a bit. Her room is this way. A bit spartan, but nothing uncomfortable." Glancing back, she couldn't help but add, "I take it you two had a good time?"

Wood chuckled. "You could say that." The strange part was, he HAD enjoyed himself. She was fun to be around, if a bit reticent. And there was something that was so damned...refreshing about being in the presence of an innocent. "To be honest, I wouldn't mind doing it again." He nearly lost it as Neese stumbled. "Though I doubt she'd agree; not after the hang-over she's going to have in the morning."

Neese silently opened the door, watching as he gently laid her down.

Ariel looked up through half-lidded eyes at the thief. Who would have thought such a rough-looking character could be so kind? On impulse, she leaned upward, and seizing a handful of hair, kissed him firmly on the lips.

Wood froze. Neese froze. Hell, even the crickets seemed to have lapsed into shocked silence.

Ariel sighed as she released the thief. " 'Night."

Wood slowly rose. He turned to Neese; her jaw swaying in the breeze as she stared at him.

"..."

"..."

"...You know...she might be too drunk to remember that tomorrow."

"..."

"...We can always hope, I suppose."

"...This never happened."

"Agreed."

And thus, the night passed on.

--------

Lightning flickered, almost delicately across the gray of the skies above Castle Conquera. There was no scientific reason for so much activity; Marmo was just that sort of a place. If the sky wasn't gray, it was black, or faintly green, the color of a cyclone's prelude. If the sun wasn't obscured it was only because it was in the process of baking the life out of anyone or anything unlucky enough to be out in it. And if it was not cold and wet and miserable, it was just cold and miserable, cold and wet, or hot and miserable.

With conditions like these, it was no surprise that the average man, woman, or child was a good deal tougher than those from the Lodoss mainland. It was likewise little surprise that most activity took place at night or in the cover of subterranean darkness.

You must understand; Marmo was blessed by the night, and cursed by the day. Or rather, Night and Day. While the sun ruled the sky, it did everything it could to make life a living hell for the unfortunates there, but by night...

It was heaven.

Pirotess watched fitfully as the sun began to set. Despite Beld's advice, suggestions, orders, and outright haranguing, Ashram refused to wield the sword during the daylight hours. At least not in practice. When asked, he'd simply said, "I intend to try and keep her happy for now."

It might interest you to know that no, Pirotess was not the sort of woman (dark elf or human) to be jealous of another female. Regardless of whether or not the female in question was just a possessed chunk of inanimate steel.

The sun was near the horizon; she'd heard that on Lodoss proper, sunsets were considered beautiful. She doubted that anyone who'd ever seen this...parody would have thought so again. Imagine if you will, a human heart, torn from its chest. Imagine that it is being dragged over the top of a hill, or mound of some sort, gushes of red trailing in its wake. That would be the most apt description of the Marmo sunset.

All of that fled in an instant however; night had come, and with it, a display that set her shivering.

Ashram had stood motionless as he waited for the night. With the twilight, his eyes snapped open. With a sound glorious as the muted choir of the righteous, _Anima Messor_, Soul Crusher, cleared its sheath. For a moment, it lay quiescent...for a moment, nothing but oddly filigreed metal.

Then, it awoke.

Perhaps the demon that Beld had slain was different here than the one in the canon. Perhaps it was Ashram who was different, perhaps the demon had merely changed with time. Whatever the reason, there were no great power struggles, no months of agony trying to beat the weapon into lending its power into even the most mundane of combat.

In this world, Ashram didn't struggle with the sword, he danced with it.

In this world, Soul Crusher loved him.

There was nothing sickly in the lavender glow, nothing of demons or hell fires or black arcane magics. This was a deep, rich violet glow that embraced him, that swept itself along with his motions as though he led it into a dance as deadly as it was awe-inspiring.

It was a royal color.

Pirotess looked on, mesmerized as Ashram continued his fencing. He had at one point ordered those convicted of crimes to be brought before him as targets (yes, even Marmo has crimes), but he had stopped that when it became quickly apparent that there was nothing in particular to be gained from it. Contrary to what you may believe, Soul Crusher didn't eat just any souls; she chose only those who she felt worthy.

Convicts were not up to par.

Now, he satisfied himself with using her arcane might to summon fiends and ghosts, to test his blade on them, to test the power of his will, the power to BEND them to his will.

Beld had been a soldier; he had used Soul Crusher merely as an impressive weapon of personalized mass destruction. Ashram chose to use it as a rallying point.

There was no real sense of time for him; Soul Crusher crooned to Ashram. The power was ever present on Marmo; it was no real challenge to wield it. Figure-eights of flashing steel gave way to vicious scything strikes that could have leveled a castle wall, arcs of destruction shifting back to the graceful blocks parries and ripostes, shifting back to destruction and then to the pinpoint violence of thrust and stab. Unaided strikes and empowered, pauses as the summoned fiends rose in answer to his will, wraiths doing battle against him, for him, aiding him, shielding him, attacking him, sacrificing themselves for him...it was the dance of the battlefield on a battlefield that was his own making.

He ended at the last with his strangest unaided technique; the sheathing strike. While there exist many schools that teach the _iaijutsu_ method, the technique of sheathing and striking in the same instant and motion, he was alone in having developed a method of striking with a motion intended to guide his sword back to where it belonged. He was the only one audacious to attempt to strike and turn it into a thrust towards his hip in mid-swing.

The sword sheathed, he let the warm tiredness soak into his muscles. He had to discharge most of his Imperial duties during the day; the night was his to do with as he would. It was also one of the few times he didn't have to deal with the priests nagging and sneaking; the fool might well be insane enough to think that Ashram couldn't see him maneuvering to put a knife in his back. Quite literally, in a few cases.

Pirotess bowed slightly as he passed. "The bath has been already prepared."

Ashram paused, turning slightly to regard the elf woman. He was no stranger to attractive women; he'd lost count of the women he'd had, women who often did the choosing rather than him. And he was...tempted, to say the least. It was odd finding a woman who didn't immediately bend to his will. He found the defiance a bit...refreshing, of all things.

It was also the first time she hadn't bothered to add a 'my lord,' to her speech. _Why not? There are many ways to exercise. Besides which, I need to see how she'll react._ She being Soul Crusher. Just because the dark elf didn't seem the jealous type didn't mean that the sword wouldn't. "You will attend me."

Pirotess actually flushed. It wasn't as though she hadn't made her intentions clear. Granted, it might not have been the best idea to turn up in his room in black leather with a bull whip, but that was just how it was done with dark elves.

Though she hadn't minded it all THAT much when he'd taken the whip for himself.

Still, she watched him appraisingly as she trailed him into the depths of the castle. Perhaps things were looking up for her after all.

To be continued...

Author's Notes: Not anywhere near as much of an update as I'd hoped for, but it sets the stage for a few things I wanted to do, a few changes and explanations I wanted to make. There'll be one more chapter like this, then it's back (more or less) to the original storyline with a few relatively significant tweaks. Though hopefully the next chapter will be nice, long, and have a degree of actual continuity.

1 – Hopefully, anyone who's ever seen Meiking will get the reference.


	12. Chapter 11: The Caraline Grasses

Top of Form

Chronicles of Murphy

Book of the Accursed

("") – Caraline language

_**Chapter Eleven**_

The Caraline Grasses

An interesting point of language is that it is considered by many to be the single crowning achievement of a society. A method by which, you may exchange information in some form; audibly, visually, or even through scent; and have this seemingly unrelated bit of information trigger a complete recovery of memory from the person as was originally intended.

Another interesting point of interest is that there is not a single language in the world that hasn't come up with some way of cursing at you. This is particularly delightful when you have the Gift of Tongues, thus allowing you to give people shit in every language under the sun, occasionally in ways that they don't realize is crude and jaw-droppingly malicious. Even when you use their own language (it's not a curse if they don't realize it. From their point of view anyway).

On that note, there is also not a single language known, not even Sanskrit, the tongue of the Buddhists, that is devoid of racial slurs. We could devote a rather substantial paragraph to them, but we won't. Even if it would provide a sort of toilet humor amusement. No, we are going to concern ourselves with one in particular; slurs against Koreans.

Alex, you see, was half-korean, half-american. Of course, when we say half-american, we mean that half of his genes were contributed from a sort of randomized polyglot of anglo-european individuals, though German seemed to be the primary contributor. He was actually quite proud of being Korean, because as he put it, 'Koreans haven't ever been in a position to do something as a nation to be ashamed of.' One thing that is somewhat odd though is that the only slur he was aware of that has been used specifically for Koreans is a japanese curse that can be roughly translated to mean...

Garlic-Eater.

It loses something, doesn't it?

The point of all this has to do with a rather odd symmetry between his own dearly-missed Earth (...well, no, not really all that missed) and Forceria. Namely, that while he'd been in Tarba, he'd heard a caravan guard who'd been escorting a consignment from Raiden mutter something drunkenly about, 'filthy garlic-eatin' barbarians.' This was followed shortly by inquiries to the more sober individuals, who were happy to fill his ears for the next hour with horror-story upon horror-story of the Carals, a vicious and bloodthirsty tribe of nomads who inhabited some god-forsaken stretch of prairie known as the Caraline Grasses, somewhere between Moss, Raiden, and Flaim, including several exceedingly miserable mountain ranges. He'd managed to glean from them some actual useful information, largely by accident; the Carals spent their time roaming the grasses, harvesting them for largely unknown crops, herding some kind of giant two-legged grazing game birds (they dressed in stitched-together feathers as much as cloth, apparently) and what were apparently the most vicious goats in the world.

They were also apparently the only people on Lodoss who ate garlic. Something Alex had been acutely missing since he'd come here. Hell, he'd been known to chomp down whole cloves of it raw. Not often, but that's beside the point.

And so, with his recuperation complete, the mess with the pirates behind him, and with Liara and Karl staying behind with Kashue's guards to turn the old pirate's den into some sort of actual relatively normal village, Alex decided to make his way west, into the Caraline grasses.

Deed and Chiffon had both tried to club him over the head and drag him off somewhere until he regained his senses, but he was thankfully quicker than they were.

After the first two or three times, anyway.

--------

"Alex, this is insane! The Carals don't take kindly to people riding through the grasses under the best of circumstances, and I don't think these count! If they catch us, they're GOING to kill us, and just because YOUR horse might be fast enough to outrun them doesn't mean ours are!"

It's odd; how precisely does someone raise their voice while maintaining a whisper? Whatever the case, Deed was doing a remarkably good job of it.

Alex ignored her. Largely because he was worried she was right. Why the hell was he doing this? Why was he even bothering? There were certain useful reasons he could think of for viewing more of Lodoss. Certainly, he could think of worse things to do. However, he could also think of better ways to spend his time.

It was very disconcerting that he could no longer completely account for his own actions.

As they finally approached the border of the Caraline Grass, Deed finally stopped talking. She'd come to the conclusion that the only way out of this mess was either waiting for Alex to fall asleep and hogtie him (twelfth time HAD to be the charm), or pray that when he saw the place he'd get bored and admit that she'd been right all along, and it had been stupid of them to come here in the first place.

Had she been able to see his face when they cleared the ridge that separated the Grasses from the rest of Lodoss, she would have felt that hope die a swift death.

Chiffon stared at the look on Alex's face. She'd been abreast of him as they rode (mainly in the hopes that she could distract him long enough for Deed to break out her blackjack), and was in a position to know. He looked like he was in rapture. She followed his gaze for a moment, trying to spot what had caught his eye. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but thick, waving tall grass, still green in the early spring weather. Oh, there was the occasional dotting of scrub bush, flowering shrub, or tree, but for the most part that was it. It was cold, to tell the truth; she shivered in the wind as it swept up the edges of the ridge to chill the air. The sky was more overcast than not; there were breaks in the massive, thickly white clouds for blue sky to peak through, but there was little to see there either.

For Alex though...

He felt as though he'd come home.

He'd seen mountains more than once, walked (more often rode) through forests, but for the most part they triggered a sense of...well, not quite claustrophobia, but certainly a sense that he was being shut in. It was like spending your whole life running and suddenly being forced to hobble everywhere. He'd seen the deserts of Flaim, if only briefly, but that was nothing but a depressing wash of sun-tortured sand and heat-shimmer.

What might seem a featureless expanse of grass to some was to him a sea, waving and awash in life like water could never be. He'd lost count of how many days he'd spent on earth hiking through the tall grass near the overlook by Clinton Lake; considering that it was a five mile walk from his home along the highway was just indicative of his enjoyment. The biting, sand-scouring winds...it might seem odd, but getting caught in a wind blast had been the closest he'd ever come before this whole mess to feeling a religious experience. It might sound ridiculous, but when you're alone on top of a hill, the winds so powerful that you can lean into them and just let them cradle you, eagles riding the bow wave of the gusts not thirty feet away, basking in a pure light and silence...

Whether he realized it or not, this was the closest thing in his life to a cathedral, and more than that.

For him, the grasslands were home.

Nearly three months, and he'd had no chance to just lie back and relax, to simply take in what was surrounding him. He had time now, and he'd found the perfect place to begin his new 'quest.'

With a howl of delight (and several cries of dismay to the right and back, respectively), he dug his heels into Bucephalus' sides and charged down the ridge.

--------

Elsewhere on the plains, three individuals watched, and all but whimpered at the sight of Alex charging across the grasses. They were not characters who had been introduced at any particular point in the series, nor in the Chronicles of Murphy as yet. All three were quite tall, or would have been by human standards, all relatively slender, though one was noticeably muscular, one average, and the other...well, female. Any features beyond that were obscured by the fact that they were all currently wrapped head-to-toe in coats made of tanned hide, with conical, wide-brimmed straw hats obscuring their features.

It was the average one to speak first. "Renard's going to find out about this, isn't he." It could have been a question, but the tone implied a sort of weary hopelessness more than any curiosity.

The lady managed a shrug, though she was thankful none of them could see her expression, what with the hat. "It doesn't really matter if he does. I'm sure that I can manage to...placate him."

This was followed by flat stares from both of the males in question. Skinny shook his head tiredly. "Renard's been around since the Beginning. If you want to get technical, he's your grandfather...plus a few greats, but the point remains. You really think that HE'S going to be the one distracted through it all?"

She had the grace to blush.

Skinny sighed. "And now this. I managed to spy on him once when that damned crow wasn't watching, and he's somehow managed to temporarily anchor his soul in the material plane."

Muscular shrugged. "So what? That's what a body's for, isn't it? I mean, that's what OUR bodies do."

"Yeah, but he's not one of us yet. Or not one of us again." Skinny frowned suddenly. "That made absolutely no sense whatsoever."

Lady turned to watch. "Why did we do this in the first place? I mean, we've spent the past, what...two hundred years looking for Itsaqa's reincarnation? Why did we even decide to do this in the first place? It's not like there are any prophecies to be fulfilled. We certainly weren't asked to, or ordered to; why are we even going through this grief?"

"Kit," Muscular responded in a dead voice.

"What about my little sister?"

As was noted above, we know very little about the three individuals in question, save their general shape, the fact they seem humanoid, and that two are ostensibly male, one female. Well, that and the fact that they're doing something they probably shouldn't be. However, we will now drop a single tidbit to those who are curious.

They are not, in fact human. What they are, I'm afraid will have to be discussed at a later date. However, I will say this much.

Their race does not possess bladders, or excretory functions as a whole.

This is the only reason why the three of them did NOT simultaneously soil themselves.

The female recovered enough to turn to face him, a cheery hello dying on her lips as she noticed that particular, pasted-on smile and posture (seated, one leg drawn up and clasped in his hands) to indicate that he was, in fact, REALLY pissed off. Skinny just whimpered. "Hi Renard."

There are certain breeds of dogs; Ibizans, saluki, and pharaoh hounds specifically, that give a certain impression of leanness, a clean, swept beauty that has little to do with grooming and brushing and more to do with the nature of the beast. The impression is that they are beautiful simply because it is their nature to be.

Renard gave a similar impression. He was not imposing; tall and lean, but little muscle definition. His face was bishonen without being effeminate, thick, well-groomed eyebrows framing eyes the color of absinthe. His skin was copper-tanned, his hair auburn that had as much bronze in it as it did brown. His gestures, his posture, his whole bearing conveyed a sense of grace, as though the second he moved, it would be in perfection.

Hard to appreciate when you're convinced that you stand a good chance of being incinerated by the guy where you stand.

Renard flowed to his feet, regarding the three. "Now then, what was this you were mentioning about my little sister? Because while my hearing may admittedly be going with age, I do in fact believe that I also heard you mention my little brother's name. So. Why on earth would you be talking about Kit and Itsaqa?"

"...um...funny you should - "

"Oh, and Tahmores? Would you mind taking off that silly hat? I'd prefer to see your face when you talk."

Skinny plastered a sickly smiled on his face as the daemon flicked off the rice-farmer hat, revealing dark brown hair framing a narrow, angular face that might have been attractive, if the normal middle-eastern tan wasn't retreating under a currently pale face. It was odd; in addition to lacking a bladder, his species didn't even have blood per se. How he could pale was a bit of a mystery. "Well...it's like this..."

--------

Water burbled quietly and gently from the spring welling up near the roots of a cottonwood, burbled as Chiffon watched her water bag fill. The action was mechanical; she had her mind on entirely other things.

They had been in the Caraline Grasses for nearly a day now, and they had been beset by precisely...nothing. No bloodthirsty barbaric plains nomads, no cunning and sneaky giant running predators, no sleek and easily hidden snakes either poisonous or of a constrictive nature, no...nothing. For god's sake, they hadn't even been attacked by _mosquitoes_ yet!

She was beginning to wonder how the stories had gotten started in the first place; if anything, it seemed like this was a good place to live. Sure, the endless green tall grasses were boring, but most places were boring until you found something in them to catch your eye. And considering that what vegetation existed was flourishing, it seemed like it would be good farmland. So why wasn't anyone bothering the Grasses?

She glanced upward; Alex had ridden off on his own for a bit. He was still within eyeshot, but not immediately approachable. Which left only the elf to talk to. Unfortunately, one of the things Chiffon had not inherited from her elvish parent had been the ability to make those odd, floating leaps into treetops. She had to climb the old fashion way, and the cottonwood in question was QUITE un-climbable.

And so, sighing, she turned the conversation to the one person in question that she COULD have a conversation with. (Are you sure it isn't just that he's from another world? Y ou mentioned that to me when we first...um, met. Remember?)

Cain shook his head. Or gave the impression he wanted to. (That has nothing to do with it. Listen, I'm sorry to be the one to say it, but there is something REALLY wrong with him. I don't know what precisely, but it's screwing around with the inherent magic badly enough that even I can sense it, and sensitivity ain't exactly my thing.)

(What about the lance? Or that bird you said was some kind of demon.)

(The word, silly girl, is daemon. Demons are evil, daemons are just...complicated. No, it's not either of those two though they're making things all widdershins themselves. No, this is something else, something powerful enough to screw around with those magics too. If it was just them, they'd be behaving in a way that made sense, something I could see. Or, well, something that YOU could see and that I could properly interpret.)

Chiffon turned to watch Alex for a moment. Cain sighed as he picked up on the ever-present emotion getting a bit more pronounced. (I've been meaning to ask. Why Alex?) At the startled feeling from her, he continued, though his tone became mollifying. (I'm not saying he's not a great guy. Heck, I'm not even implying that he wasn't a great guy before yours truly put him back together the way he should have been. It's just...you aren't even looking. Don't take this the wrong way, but most women are always looking for the best guy, and I think if you tried, you could have just about anyone you wanted.)

Chiffon shook her head, flushing a bit as she smiled. (He's probably the only one I can't just get on my own. But he's the one I want.)

(Well, why?)

Chiffon sighed. (It's silly, and it's girlish, and I don't know if it will last, but...he's kind to me. I know that other people are kind to me, but that's only because of him. He made them look at me for what I am. When he was kind, he did it without any question, without needing anything, without asking for anything. I...) she sighed. (I don't think you understand just how hard it is to find someone who won't ask anything of you that you won't just give outright.)

Cain was silent. (You might be surprised.) Chiffon started; something on the edge of her perceptions had just leapt into a sort of half-focus. (I really wish you'd warn me when you're going to take over my senses Cain.)

The spirit groaned. (We've got trouble. It looks like some kind of shaman or summoner. Primitive, but powerful. That's a bad combination.)

Chiffon frowned. There were overtones, flavors to the images she could sense, but she still couldn't recognize everything she saw. (How can you tell it's a shaman?)

(Sharpen the image; bring it into full focus.)

(Won't that let them know we're here?)

Cain sighed. (Check out the spiritual plane. Overlay it with the mage-sense.)

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes. As the air left her lungs in a soft, slow, hissing exhale, it was as though she'd blown away a cloud of dust covering everything in sight. Flares and flashes of light and power, every color imaginable and some that had no name, warped and bent spaces shimmering like mirages and carnival mirrors, clouds that chuckled and belched in a storm, rivers that scolded...and three spirit eagles, each almost twice the size of anything natural. The spirit plane. She hissed slightly; with the overlay, there was a sense of them being chained, leashes leading back to the original source of Cain's alarm. (He's chained spirits to do his bidding?)

Cain would have nodded. (It's crude, and not very safe under even the best of circumstances. You have to keep the control iron-hard at all times, or they can slip the bonds and attack. What's worse, chained spirits don't tend to be all that generously inclined towards their masters; they're slaves, not servants.)

(Aren't there better ways to do it?)

(Sure, but they're complicated. If half of what we've been hearing about the Carals is true, this isn't exactly a place where they get the time to sit around and innovate. It's crude, it's dangerous, and it's not particularly effective, but it still works.)

Chiffon was about to answer when an arrow whistled into the brush under the tree. An instant later, Deedlit faded into sight next to her, rapier drawn. Chiffon stifled her fear as she rose, the workings of a fire-summoning at her finger tips. She wouldn't have to chant; it was simple enough that all it would take would be a snap of her fingers. She doubted there would be anyone willing or interested in riding into a sheet of ghostly flame.

Then the Carals came clear into view, and both fear and spell faded, replaced by a sense of shock and awe.

She'd known they were cavalry; though that was one of the things everyone knew. She'd always assumed though that they were just horse-archers or something.

She hadn't expected to see the lean, dark-tanned barbarians come whistling across the hills on the backs of eight-foot tall carnivorous running birds.

The birds scared her. They were just animals; she hadn't completely faded out of spirit-sight yet, and she could see that much. It was that very sense of the primitive surrounding them that gave her pause. Horses she was used to, but horses were soft and beautiful and gentle (Bucephalus being largely an exception to horses in general). And even when they weren't, you could reasonably expect to go through life without expecting to get eaten by your horse.

These though...they were beautiful, in some sense, but no amount of beauty could hide the sharpness of those bright, burning eyes, the cruel hook of black and yellow beaks, the terrible swiftness of those long legs and long claws.

The Carals themselves were no less imposing. Men and women rode side by side, most wearing long, blousy trousers that gathered at the ankles and waist. If you looked carefully, you could see the tough leather soft boots they tucked under their cuffs, though few would be staring at their feet. Over the trousers they wore vests of bird-hide, many dressed with the feathers still attached to the outside. The only immediate difference between the men and women's clothing was that the women seemed to prefer vests short enough to bare their midriffs, the men wearing vests full to their waists.

Every one of them carried a spear of some sort. Their were curved blades and straight, single-bladed and tridents, spears with hooks and barbs and cross-blades, spears with single and double edges, halberds and glaives and bills and many that she would never be able to name properly. Each also carried a short, four or four-and-a-half foot sinew-backed bow, arrows and bow case slung across the smalls of their backs in quivers. Some also carried long, heavy, S-curved swords at their waists; most just had heavy knives.

None of them was without jewelry or ornamentation of some kind. Many favored tattoos, on face or neck or bare shoulder. Necklaces, pendants, and chokers were present, made of everything from gold and pearl to tanned snake-skin and feathers.

Then the shaman rode up, and put everything else in the shade.

Chiffon swallowed nervously at the sight of him. There was no question he was the shaman; the 'leashes' that bound the eagle spirits joined to him obviously. More than that, the grandeur of his costume made it only too clear he was of great importance.

He wore the same blousy cloth pants and feather vest as the others, but where the others wore feathers because they hadn't been moved, his had the feathers sewn on deliberately, feathers of bright red and black and amber; small feathers for the most part, forming eye-wrenching geometric designs. He also wore a robe of some sort, one woven from the same cloth as his pants, this one dyed bright ocher and covered in thousands of small trophies and embroidery. Teeth, tusks, hanks of fur and hair, bits of crystal and bone carved or not, they jangled on his body with a sound like hail. There was no spear, no bow and arrow, no knife in view. He carried instead a short staff, three feet long, on one end what was very clearly the mummified claw of some great bird (Chiffon thought, with a sinking feeling, that it might have come from one of their mounts) wrapped around a large brass ball covered in some kind of cuneiform script, the other end sporting a large fan of bleached white feathers.

He didn't bother with introductions. "She comes with us," he rasped out, thrusting the ball-and-claw end of his staff at Chiffon.

It took her a moment to recognize the emotions welling up in her at the command. There was fear, a bit perhaps, wonder as to what he desired (something told her lust had nothing to do with it), but mainly...

She was furious. For the first time in years, she was purely furious. "I won't."

One of the riders urged his mount to the side of the shaman. Older, he appeared ill-at-ease with the situation. His words were lost in another language entirely, but the shaman simply glared at him with a sort of crazed self-importance. "Magic strong. She learn from me." It was clear that the use of their language was for her benefit.

"I _have_ a teacher."

For all that the shaman seemed to know maybe a hundred words of the Common tongue, he could tell quite well that Chiffon was having nothing of it. He at least was barbarian enough to respond...well, barbarically.

Deed's eyes bugged...er, widened as the shaman's three familiars abruptly grew, their spiritual aura brightening considerably as they prepared to obey. Stabbing her sword into the ground, she sank to one knee, chanting frantically. She didn't know just how useful her sylphs would be against those things, but she had to try...she stared.

Chiffon had preempted her.

The instant the first flares of power had begun gathering, she'd channeled her fire spell and pumped as much power as she could through it, partly through design and partly from sheer nerves and adrenaline.

A roaring torrent of ghostly, yellow-white flame the size of a peasant's cottage erupted in the midst of the eagles, drawing a shout of alarm from the Carals as they struggled to control their mounts.

All but the shaman.

The fire was enough to startle his mount, but he viciously yanked its head down and sent his three singed if not particularly hurt spirits soaring towards them.

Deed finished her spell, and sent a swarm of wind elementals to harass the eagles as she grabbed Chiffon and started pulling her towards the tree. She couldn't leap very far with a passenger, but she could manage to get them into the tree at least.

Sylphs, it should be mentioned, are not particularly strong elementals. While in large numbers they can be dangerous and powerful enough to theoretically chain a large dragon for a short time, this is only if the target is defenseless. The eagles weren't. Between their own natural power and the layers of command lain on them by the shaman, they knocked the spell apart as though they were stalking through a swarm of mosquitoes. Deed was forced back as one of the lead ones stooped on her.

This proved all the opening the shaman needed to charge Chiffon and bat her across the temples with the ball-and-claw on his staff. She dropped like a stone. The shaman grunted as he slipped off his bird, struggling to find a way to toss her over the pommel of his saddle.

The first arrow struck his left temple and drilled a very neat hole through his forebrain. Two more followed in rapid succession, punching through the hollow of his jaw and the carotid artery respectively.

Alex had only noticed something wrong when Cyrus had warned him; he'd turned just in time to see Chiffon's fire spell. Noting that nearly two hundred plainsmen had been around them, he'd decided to shoot first and interrogate anything that accidentally survived.

Then he got close enough to see the details. He ignored the angry, milling plainsmen. He ignored the three eagles which were now free and very much inclined to use that freedom to indulge in sadistic violence. He ignored the way that Cyrus was trying to let him know that company was coming. He even ignored the awed looks on some of the Carals' faces as they stared, not at him but at Bucephalus.

What he couldn't get himself to ignore was the sight of Deedlit, cradling an arm marred by puncture wounds from spirits' talons. He couldn't ignore the sight of Chiffon, a bruise on her forehead, sprawled unconscious with the shaman's corpse sprawled over her.

His eyes were past red. Past amber. Past gold.

They burned a very primal green.

It was around that time that the eagles decided to attack him.

He let Achiyalabopa loose, fed with the pure, unadulterated fury he was feeling.

The first sign something was wrong were probably the color-changing eyes. That was about the time when the three massive spirit eagles were abruptly hammered out of the air by the sudden eruption of Achiya's spiritual form, sullen energy rust-and-blood in color. The snap of wings nearly sixty feet in span was enough to turn the smaller (and very abruptly meek) familiars into so much ballistic flesh. As for the Carals...

Alex wanted to kill them. What he really wanted at that particular moment was to dig his heels into his horse's side, charge them en masse, pincushion everything in range with arrows until he was close enough for his lance to be effective, and then start tearing people's heads off. He was currently berating himself for shooting the shaman, when there were probably a thousand different ways he could have inflicted pain on him before death.

He was also struggling as hard as he could to rein in his blood thirst, a blood thirst that was unfortunately, almost entirely him rather than the demon bird's spirit.

Achiya shrieked, a hellish noise that sounded like rending steel; he was free, he was hungry, and he was feeling a power more glorious in that moment than anything he'd ever felt in his life. He wanted to kill, he wanted his master to give in to the rage.

Unfortunately, the shriek woke up Chiffon, who, having seen just what Alex tended to do when he got angry and overprotective, staggered to her feet and flung her arms around him from behind.

At that point, things started to get hazy. Consciousness started fading, but Alex held on long enough to properly chain Achiya once more, even as he passed out to the sound of Chiffon's voice...

"It's alright...it's alright...it's alright..."

--------

Wagnard let out a hissing sort of laugh as he stared at the manuscripts before him. Over the past month, his power had been growing steadily. Perhaps he was not a match for Ashram and his demon sword yet, but if he had met, say...Wort, or Karla...he wouldn't be the one bowing and scraping.

That was not the source of his laughter however. He had finally found it.

It was a wonder that it had taken him so long to think of it. Every sorcerer learned something of it; the name at least was known to most people through the whole continent of Lodoss. Even sorcerers on Alecrast were aware of the legends.

Wagnard though...he knew the truth. He knew it was real, he knew where it was, and he knew he could get his skeletal hands on it.

Granted, there was that irksome little detail of the nigh-unstoppable Ancient Dragon to deal with, but he was confident that there would be those to do his dirty work for him.

Ashram wouldn't be any help. That much was clear; the damned knight had achieved a mastery over Soul Crusher that had very nearly moved Beld to tears of envy.

I mean that. Literal tears.

If anyone could pull it off, if anyone could kill Shooting Star, it would be Ashram. Unfortunately, there was no chance of that happening; Ashram hated Wagnard with a passion that he no longer even bothered to conceal. Wagnard's jaw clenched at the thought. He had no illusions of love lost between the two of them, but this...slap in the face, this lack of respect...

He'd feed the Black Knight to Narse when it was all over. Black Knight and Black Dragon, it seemed to have a lovely symmetry to it.

That still did nothing to help him decide who was to do the job though. The Holy Sword was an artifact of power that quite likely dwarfed even Soul Crusher, but it wasn't exactly suited for killing something huge. Assuming that it could be stolen, which it probably couldn't.

The only other force that Wagnard could imagine having any sort of chance against the Red Dragon would be another dragon, and he would have little luck there. Eibra would likely eat him out of spite if he approached the water dragon. Mycen would kill him some other way, if only out of distaste at the idea of human flesh. He'd never even get a chance to get near Bramd; the dragon was the most devoted avatar of Marfa on all Lodoss.

Narse, he might be able to convince. At the very least, they were on the same side. Unfortunately, he wanted the dragon to remain to guard the temple and altar he'd need. It was best not even to mention it to the Black Dragon, come to think of it; if Narse got his talons on the Scepter, he'd guard it himself.

Below, Kardis sighed. The priest was powerful, but the power was going to his head; he'd stopped thinking in terms of any tactics save bludgeoning.

She'd have to put events in motion herself, and hope his mind hadn't degraded so badly that he couldn't notice the opportunity when it slapped him in the face.

--------

It was a rather gory scene that Alex woke up to.

There had been 200 Carals to attack and attempt to kidnap Chiffon. Of those 200, it seemed that roughly two thirds of them were dead; of the remaining, most were bound, the others in the midst of some kind of joyful reunion.

Oh, did I neglect to mention? There were several thousand more Carals milling around. Though at the very least, they didn't seem interested in attacking the three foreigners.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, noting idly that his head had been pillowed in both Chiffon and Deedlit's laps (how they'd gotten that worked out would puzzle him later). Then did a double take as he looked back at the two incredulously. Why weren't they angry?

A cough distracted him before certain uncomfortable possibilities could present themselves. Turning, he noted the tall, tanned woman with what looked like roughly forty slender daggers sheathed about her person. She bowed to him calmly. "Apologies. Shaman renegade."

Sighing, he shook his head. The pidgin was getting REALLY annoying. ("You can speak your own language if you want.")

Her jaw dropped in shock. ("Y...you speak our language?")

("Fluently. Now what's this about the shaman? I assume he was the idiot with the birds and the staff.")

She swallowed, suddenly nervous. Alex couldn't know, but their language was one of the most closely guarded secrets on Lodoss; it shouldn't have been impossible for anyone but another Caral to know it. Still, he'd asked, and judging from what her own advisor had said about the shaggy-haired man's familiar, it would be best to be polite. ("He has no name, not anymore. Nor even before you killed him. The men who rode with him were boys that he either coerced or talked into believing in some sort of eagle god that he said he was chosen by.") She managed a shrug, even with the fear plain on her face. ("We were intending to kill him ourselves, but you caught him first.")

Alex shook his head tiredly. Fighting with Achiya had taken more out of him than he'd expected; it wasn't just the spirit either. Change might be inevitable, but he would have preferred changes that weren't quite so disconcerting as a sudden desire to think up the most horrifying methods of torture he could imagine. (His current contender for most heinous required bolt cutters, a red-hot flatiron, and a certain taste for the dish known as Rocky Mountain Oysters(1).)

And so, he didn't bother being as polite as he could have been. ("So what happens now?")

The woman looked around evasively. ("Strangers are not welcome among the Caraline Grasses, at least not under normal circumstances.")

Alex laughed aloud. ("I don't think I've had something you could call a 'normal' experience for a VERY long time.")

She managed a smile. ("You'll have to tell us. However, you come with a Herald of the Void, and the omens in that are far too important to ignore. So while I won't force you to remain, I hope you'll accept our invitation to remain in the grasses.")

Alex frowned. ("Herald of the Void?") In answer, she pointed.

...and Alex nearly face-faulted. Cyrus was perched on the pommel of one of those big runner birds, preening as nearly forty women petted and scratched him.

Cats can't look that smug.

Alex turned to the elves. "She says that we can remain here if we'd like; apparently the guy with the eagles was a criminal fleeing his execution."

"Alex, there is NOTHING HERE." Deed looked around. The birds made her nervous. The fact that no one here went around without spear, bow-and-arrow, and knife/sword made her nervous. The fact that there were at least four other shamans here with their own familiars made her nervous.

And she was quite honest enough to admit that yes, being around nearly eight hundred leering barbarian men made her nervous.

Alex looked away, scanning the hills. There really wasn't much here besides his nostalgia. It was just grass and people they couldn't understand, weird birds and weirder customs. And...and...

"I'm sorry Deed, but something drew me here. I have to find out what it was."

The elf was silent for a moment as her ears quivered with outrage and the overwhelming NEED to fetch a large stick and bludgeon the dumb human. Finally, she stood, spun around, and stalked back to her horse, returning a few moments later with her guitar. "Let me know when you decide to come to your senses." With that, she leapt into the tree for a good long sulk.

Alex sighed. "Waiting for me to come to my senses. That's going to take a while."

--------

Night had fallen over the Caraline Grasses. The setting of the sun had drawn out new life, as the transition from the day hunters to the nocturnal came over the prairie.

Alex had left behind everything he could. Bucephalus was preening smugly under the awed looks of the Carals; horses in general were considered oddities, but the horrible reputation of the Lusitano was apparently something they felt admirable there. Achiya had been left with Chiffon; she'd nearly passed out from trying to argue him into taking the spear away from her. His pack, his bow, his quiver...he was striding the plains with nothing but the clothes on his back and his umbrella, searching for the gods only knew what.

Cyrus flapped to a landing on his left shoulder. Alex ignored him for a moment, just watching the last slivers of sunlight fading over the horizon. For once, Cyrus kept his beak shut, just letting Alex think. In the end, it was Alex who broke the silence.

How much time do I have left?

Cyrus shrugged. You're drawing on the spear-bird's power more than I thought you could; if you keep your expenditure to something relatively normal, you'll have...oh, eight months left maybe. Depending on how much Achiya's willing to help, you might not have to force it at all.

Alex nodded quietly, watching the plains. Is there something here Cyrus? Can you feel...anything?

I can feel quite a bit.

No, something...off. He scrubbed his hand through his hair irritably. For some reason, I abandoned Tarba and traveled six hundred miles to the plains on nothing but a whim. Is there anything here that might have drawn me?

Anything Cyrus might have said was interrupted as the grass rustled. It could have been the wind, and it almost certainly should have been too far to hear, and yet they both knew someone was there.

The man was wearing tanned buckskin garments; loose pants of hide, his shirt tight in the chest with loose, flowing, fringed sleeves. They blended surprisingly well into the green grasses; it gave the impression of a perfectly normal dry patch in the plains.

Renard smiled, bowing a bit to them both. A tiny pulse, on wavelengths that Alex could never detect were enough to inform Cyrus that a single word would result in him being slowly eaten by a MUCH bigger predator. "I didn't think anyone else was out here. Certainly not on foot; the Carals seem to think using their own legs is some kind of heresy."

"Who are you?" It was strange; every instinct in Alex's body told him the man was safe.

"My name is Renard. If you don't mind my asking, what are you doing here?"

Alex sighed, looking around. "I can't answer that."

"Can't or won't?" It was a simple question; no malice, no suspicion.

"Can't. I came here, but I don't have any idea why."

Renard took it in stride. "I come here when I can; the Carals don't know I exist, and I rather prefer it that way. I thought you might have come to watch the grass dogs."

Alex looked up, frowning. "Grass dogs?" In answer, Renard pointed. Curious, Alex followed the finger...

...and felt a shiver course over his body.

Medium-sized canines. Long of body and leg, long bushy tail. Coat was auburn in color; not tan, not gray, not brown, not yellow, not black or white, but with bits and pieces of each in its own particular place. Head characterized by extremely large ears and narrow, triangular profile; similar to a wolf's, but too narrow, more triangular. Weight estimated at 15 kg for a full-grown individual; height at the shoulder of 45 cm, length overall of 125 cm. _Canis latrans._ The barking dog. Trickster.

Coyotes.

"I didn't think they existed on Lodoss."

Renard watched Alex sidelong. He hadn't quite believed their explanations. Sure there were similarities, but...well, someone would have had to come along sooner or later. Inevitability and all that rot. But the look on his face...

The coyote is not a large, or powerful, or deadly predator. It is most often portrayed as a coward, a buffoon, and has nothing worth emulating. He is the scapegoat of mythology, the person everyone points to an says, 'that's why you shouldn't do it.'

It is a rare individual indeed who will look at a coyote with awe on his face. "Most people don't know about them. Those who do ignore them. They're just sheep thieves, after all."

"They are unashamed."

Renard smiled, a weight on his chest lifting, a weight he had forgotten was there. "Would you like to meet some? They don't mind me; I have a feeling they won't mind you."

The delight on Alex's face was answer enough.

--------

The flush of pleasure of his romp with the coyotes, with the counsel of Renard...it was unfortunately not to last.

Returning to the camp, Alex was...well, on the plus side no one had hurt, harassed, molested, or otherwise been cruel to Chiffon and Deed.

On the downside, there's a lot you can do to someone short of that.

"...you're fuzzy..."

Taking in the sight of a glazed, giggling half-elf and a similarly half-baked high elf, Alex was unable to do more than stare for quite a while. Finally, he turned to Grenadine, the leader he'd spoken with. ("Would someone explain to me how those two managed to get stoned?")

Grenadine, fighting back an overwhelming urge to howl with laughter, wiped away a few tears and caught her breath. ("They were asking us why no one ever tried to settle the grasses. We were explaining how the tulle grass makes an interlinked root system down to about two feet; it's almost impossible to plow the land or pull out the grasses.") Biting back another laugh, she turned back to him as Alex watched the two begin waxing moronic on why they don't have hands on their ankles. ("Anyway, one of them asked why they didn't just burn the grasses away. One of the men...um, he pulled a bit out and tossed it on the campfire, and...") She shrugged helplessly. ("We use the smoke in religious ceremonies and festivals sometimes. He shouldn't have, but...")

Alex winced. ("Does it have any long-term side effects? Are they going to get addicted, or anything?")

She shook her head. ("They won't even remember what they do under the smoke. They'll fall asleep sooner or later, then wake up with a pounding headache and no idea at all what happened.")

("So they'll basically be hung-over.") He shook his head. ("Come to think of it, how could you guys even talk? I thought you didn't speak their language, and I know they don't speak Caral.")

("The half-elf cast some kind of spe-")

"Ipe!'

Chiffon giggled from her position on his back. "You're all fuzzy." She ruffled his hair playfully.

Alex looked up from his current supine position. ("Is this sort of thing normal for the smokers?")

Grenadine grinned wickedly. ("I should warn you, they might do things they wouldn't normally do, but it doesn't make them do things they'd never do. So it's something they might WANT to do, they just aren't willing to do it.")

("Great.")

Deedlit giggled as she started poking at his stubble (he hated to shave). "He IS fuzzy. Fuzzy like a bunny...fuzzy like a puppy!"

"Fuzzy Puppy! Fuzzy Puppy!" they chorused.

Alex was blushing, but couldn't bring himself to really...well, lament his current position. He might not be quite ready for some of what went with a female relationship, but he couldn't really bring himself to be unhappy with two gorgeous women snuggling up against him.

Chiffon kissed him.

He froze.

Sure, it was just a peck. And on the upper tip of his ear; not exactly a romantic or erotic place. Still, it surprised him.

Deedlit frowned. "No fair! I wanna kiss the puppy!" With that, she grabbed a handful of hair and pulled his face around so that she could give him a kiss.

Every hair on his body stood on end.

Some small part of him noted that there was a tongue in his mouth that hadn't been there a minute ago. A tiny part of him was saying that he needed to break the embrace and scramble out of the way. This part was largely being mauled by the instinct-driven portions of his brain that were bellowing in no uncertain terms to start groping.

It was right around that time that Chiffon decided to join in.

Alex remained conscious just long enough to note that there were now, in fact, two tongues in his mouth that didn't belong there. Simultaneously.

Grenadine shook her head. ("That's something you don't exactly see everyday.")

One of the warriors grinned. ("Let's stuff them into one bedroll. They won't remember what happened, so they'll have no idea what they did.")

Not even the evil cackling of the Carals was enough to rouse Alex's thoroughly short-circuited brain.

Far away, Renard grinned. This version of Itsaqa didn't seem to be quite as much of a prude this time around.

It could very well save his life.

To Be Continued...

(1) – Rocky Mountain Oysters are deep-fried beef testicles.

Author's Notes: Well, this was really the last thing I wanted to do before I returned to the main story line, though changes will of course occur there. The Carals will have some relatively small part to play in the story ahead, but the main purpose was to introduce Renard and the Three Meddlers. Back to Lodoss proper now. However, there's a little thing that's been bugging me for a while that I just need to get out of my system now rather than later. Continue reading if you're curious. If not, they don't contribute too much to the story at hand, so it's not entirely necessary.


	13. Chapter 12: It doesn't always work

Chronicles of Murphy

Book of the Accursed

Disclaimer: Record of the Lodoss War belongs to Ryo Mizuno and whatever companies produce the series and print the mangas respectively. Meiking belongs to somebody else too, but I'm not sure who. Ragnorak (which is the source material for two of the cameo characters) belongs to Myung-jin Lee, Daiwon Inc., and TokyoPop.

Alex Latrans, Cyrus, Warai Kitsune, Renard, and Achiyalabopa all belong to me.

You can't write a good self-insert without being a raging egomaniac.

_**Chapter Twelve**_

It Doesn't Always Work...

To tell all the great, glorious, and largely unwanted (at least from his perspective) tales of Alex Latrans, who would come in days of yore to be known as the Coyote Knight, would take volumes of reams of tomes to tell properly. Not to mention a great deal of effort from someone who will remain nameless...someone who is very dedicated to the world of Anime in general and Lodoss/Forceria in particular...but who is unfortunately a lazy git for the most part.

So I'm afraid that you will not hear of how he fought the dragon of Angnor (_"it wasn't really that bad. I mean, it wasn't all that much bigger than a horse"_).

How he stood up to the vicious Chicken of Bristol (_"...Okay, I'll admit that was a tough fight. But just because I had no idea for the first half an hour how I was supposed to fight a flesh-eating chicken the size of an elephant"_).

How he destroyed the pirates of the bay of Pharis (_"there were only four ships, and I just rowed out there while they were asleep and chiseled a hole in the hulls"_).

How he did for three days fight duels without end against the corrupt and evil lord Flatizar of Flaim and his four hundred champions (_"I ate and slept quite comfortably in between my bouts, thank you very much. Besides, I've met epileptic gnomes who could have gone five rounds with any ten of those idiots; no one who ever actually saw them fight would have called them champions."_)

And of course, we cannot tell you of the many tales of the women who he seduced. Largely because the last time he caught someone using his name and seduce in the same sentence...well, they managed to stop him before he actually DID feed the poor bard in question any of his own body parts. _("Though I can't seem to get people to stop talking about that time I had to run for an entire night in nothing but a pair of boxers to get out of a shotgun wedding to a widowed, amorous noblewoman.")_

Yea, for nigh unto three months did Alex Latrans, the Coyote Knight roam the length and breadth of Lodoss, accompanied as always by the wise and fair Maid of Allan (who happened to be an easily snarked-off high elf), the great sage of Kannon (an easily-flustered if decidedly dangerous and ludicrously-powerful half-elf girl), and his living herald, the Crow known as Cyrus (they never did get him to stop preening over it).

But fate is not so easily diverted, regardless of what some may believe. And many are there who are too stupid to get new plans, though considering that they're insane and fanatics to begin with that shouldn't be too surprising.

And Fate, as any great hero (willing or not) quickly realizes, is a miserable, cantankerous, sadistic, angry, rage-driven, snarked-off, PMS-ing, evil, petty, cruel, hormone-crazed, sociopathic, and in all other ways out-to-get-you HELLBITCH.

We now return you to the regularly scheduled fanfic.

--------

Wagnard frowned darkly at the oddly-dressed man in front of him. Perhaps a few inches shy of six feet in height, he wore saggy, ballooning pants a dingy gray in color with a sort of half-armor on top; the only real protection was localized in the massively over-sized shoulder plates he wore. His identity was concealed behind a full face mask, the mouth a jagged parody of teeth, only one eye visible, the other obscured by some sort of red lens. Adding to the general sense of...oddity, either his hair or the wig he wore was a massive, shaggy, untamed mass of white. The only weapon he bore was a short spear slung over his back, the blade nearly six inches wide and over a foot and a half long.

Though perhaps it wasn't the sight of the bounty hunter that put him on edge, but rather the four oddly-shaped golems accompanying him. "You are Kyugesu the hunter, is that correct?"

The man smirked. Or might have; the mask was carved into a smirk, in any case. "I wouldn't be here if I wasn't. So who does the priesthood want dead?"

Wagnard ignored him for a moment, fingering his dragon-headed staff for a moment. It was distasteful to have to deal with the man, but truth be told, he was running out of time and options. If the Resurrection was to occur, it had to occur fairly soon, and to do that, he needed the Scepter. Among other things. Fortunately, he didn't have to entrust such a task to this particular fool. "I don't want them dead, I want them kidnapped."

Kyugesu snorted. "I doubt you'll be happy with that. I charge extra for people I don't get to kill; controlling my puppets that much isn't too terribly easy. If you want them to torture to death, just let me do it; it'll still cost less."

Wagnard sniffed disdainfully. "She is not for torture, she is for a sacrifice. And I'm afraid that I can't simply sacrifice anyone, this has to be her in particular. So if you should 'accidentally' kill her, I'll see to it that you get to spend the last few hours of your life choking to death on your own viscera. Is that clear?"

Kyugesu was quiet for a moment; the priest was getting more serious. "You want someone alive, I'll get someone alive. Like I said though, it costs more. Who, where, and how soon do you need them?"

_At least he's finally being professional._ "I want you to kidnap the High Elf Deedlit. I have spies keeping tabs on her movements; one of them will accompany you to guide you to the target. You will bring her back immediately. Touch her beforehand, and you'll suffer for it."

Kyugesu snorted. "What is it with you priests and virgin sacrifices?" He frowned suddenly. "Wait a second, you have spies tailing her? Why haven't you grabbed her before now? What are you trying to get me into here?"

Wagnard tossed him a bag the size of a man's fist, one filled with small, spherical rubies. "You're being well-paid for your risk. You don't need to know more than that."

"The Hell I don't!" Kyugesu tossed the bag right back. "The first rule of bounty hunting is that you can't spend it if you're dead. So cough up."

Wagnard frowned for a moment, but relented. Ashram wouldn't be of any help, and thus no one in the Marmo's army could be counted on. Pirotess was firmly behind the new Emperor, and as such he couldn't get his hands on any truly competent dark elves. Not beyond his spies, anyway. He couldn't trust something delicate to those he did control. Still, he had to work hard to force himself to remember he needed the hunter. "She is the companion of a man named Alex Latrans. A very dangerous man - "

"The Coyote?" Kyugesu grinned. "You had me worried for a second there. Shit, I can kill him, no problem." A blade snapped forward, piercing the bag with his down payment in it. He smirked as one of his Death Puppets flung it back to him. "She'll be here within two weeks. Just make sure your little spies know not to get in my way." Laughing, he strolled out of the citadel.

Wagnard grit his teeth at the man's impertinence. He doubted the man would be so cavalier if he had actually seen the coyote fight, but perhaps his arrogance wasn't completely unfounded. It still grated however.

A mocking laugh flitted out of the darkness. "Two men for one job? I hope not. I was promised blood, and if it's not to be mine, I'll be...upset."

Wagnard was a pale man, but he went paler at the voice. He'd never even realized the other was here.

Detaching himself from the darkness, the man known as Skurai, the Cursed Prosecutor strolled unhurriedly to face the dark priest.

Well over six feet tall, his surprisingly slender build made him seem taller. Long, stringy black hair reached the small of his back, framing his face not unlike a hood. His great coat was inky black, drinking in the light; the only thing to mar the perfect darkness was a small mark at the small of his back, not unlike a bat's spread wings.

It was his face that frightened though. Bleached as pale as bare bone, his crazed eyes were sunken, rimmed in a halo of blackness. There was death and madness and pain in those eyes, eyes that seemed to try and swallow you whole.

Coming back to himself, he forced calm regality into his bearing. "Kyugesu is of use to me. And I respectfully point out that you are not a good choice for bringing someone back alive."

Skurai just smirked at him. "You promised me blood. More importantly, you promised Talatsu blood. Powerful blood. Who? Where?"

Wagnard stalked towards the balcony. It wasn't easy turning his back on the man; even with his powers, he knew better. "Far to the north of here, in the Storm and Fire Desert, there is a mountain known as Fire Dragon Mountain. Within it dwells Shooting Star, the red demon dragon, said to be the strongest of all dragons, and thus the strongest creature in the world." He managed a skeletal grin as he turned to regard the Prosecutor. "I trust such blood will be strong enough for your curse?"

Skurai snorted disdainfully. "You tell me nothing I don't know. The dragon has not been seen in years. What do I stand to gain in this? Or rather, what do YOU stand to gain?"

"Show me Talatsu," Wagnard replied. "Show me the dread sword."

Skurai raised an eyebrow, but complied, stretching out one hand behind him. His shadow abruptly turned solid black, a pool in the night. From that shadows, there came a pommel, a hilt, and a sword blade, straight and nearly five feet in length, only the tip curved. There was no guard; the sword flared at the hilt, providing the space needed for a single, bat-like mark; the same mark Skurai wore.

Talatsu. The Soul-Drinker.

Wagnard released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "The legends say that Talatsu was forged by the gods, meant to be a weapon that was unbeatable, a weapon that would take of its fallen victims their strength and life at once. But the gods grew fearful of the blade, and chained it, casting it to the earth, where it could feed unchecked without ever growing strong enough to challenge a god. And yet, it remains a weapon that even gods fear."

"Get to the point priest," rasped the blade, a mouth opening in the pommel. "Your blood is potent and sweet; sweet enough to tempt me, at least."

Wagnard ignored it. The blade wasn't to be feared; it was harmless so long as it was not wielded. It was the wielder he needed to appeal to. "There is another artifact in Lodoss that they say the gods fear. An artifact entrusted to Shooting Star. I want that artifact. I want you to bring me the Scepter of Domination."

Skurai opened his mouth to inform Wagnard where he could put that scepter, when he froze. The glee was palpable; even the mad priest should have been able to feel it. "It seems the idea is pleasing to Talatsu. I wonder why?"

Talatsu grinned, its rusty voice chuckling. "I want to see the god's tremble. And I certainly don't want you to be the one making them tremble; you belong to me, Skurai. Besides, it has been ages since I've tasted a dragon's blood. Yes, fight the dragon. Take the scepter, and give it to the fool priest."

--------

There are many things that we take for granted. We all KNOW that the sun will rise in the morning, that it will rise in the east, and then set in the west. We all KNOW that eventually, the seasons change predictably, becoming very hot, then very cold as the years come and go.

What we take for granted more so even than this though, is our own bodies. How often do you stop and think about the blood that is pumping through your veins? When was the last time you poked yourself in the liver to make sure that it's still there and properly filtering your bodily fluids? Have you ever really stopped in wonder at your own reflexes?

It's like the song says. You don't know what you got, until it's gone.

As such, it was more irksome than normal for Alex when he jerked himself out of a sound sleep, and did precisely...nothing. No jumping out of bed, no gasping, no sudden cold sweat; if not for the fact that his eyes had shot open, you'd never even realize that he was awake. His complete lack of reflexive movement was a constant reminder of the fact that he was dying.

Sure, it was useful at times. He never jumped at loud noises (he wasn't about to admit to not having nerves of steel), he was always in complete control. Unfortunately, there were times when reflexes would have made things easier for him, and he had little choice with that, now did he?

Sighing, he flexed his will; the Flowing Soul was an old friend now, a simple ease. He didn't sit up, at least not at first. Shunting the flow to his head, he sharpened his ears, his smell, his sense of touch. He could effectively double his already-enhanced senses, if only for a few moments. He couldn't move the rest of his body while doing it, not without spending precious moments before they were due, but that wasn't really a problem yet. He allowed a breath to escape as he sat up. Neither Deedlit nor Chiffon was awake; he'd woken one or the other enough times already.

Hoisting his lanky frame up, he slipped soundlessly into the woods, Cyrus landing owl-quiet on his shoulder. He didn't mean to go far; just the brook a dozen yards away. Still, it seemed like every waking moment, the crow was with him. He remained silent as Alex knelt by the brook, splashing water on his face. Is it really worth spending the time you need to feel? Cold water can't be all THAT useful to you, not compared to what you have.

Pausing mid-splash, Alex sighed, letting the cold water trickle out of his hands. You said I have at least eight months left. Still, you're right. It's not helping much anymore. He started as Cyrus absently brushed a wingtip against his cheek. Despite having known the spirit for nearly four months, that was the first time anything even resembling affection had come from him. ...Thanks.

Cyrus hopped off his shoulder, wings beating lightly. Lighting in a nearby branch, he pivoted easily to look back at Alex. It's the dreams again, isn't it.

Alex sighed; answer enough.

For two and a half months, the nightmares had been plaguing him. The day after they'd left the Caraline grasses, they'd begun; nightmare visions of fire and riot; never joy, never contentment, just fear and cold-blooded hate. Never peace, always war, conflict, and bloodshed.

They were dreams tinged with a sense of the animal, dreams of primordial rage and barbaric lusts. And always, the coyote howled through the dreams, always he saw the same man.

He was not tall, he loomed. He was not lean, he was skeletal, stripped down to whipcord and scar. He was not handsome, he was diabolically charming, his grin a fallen angel's. He was not strong, he was brutish. He was not confident, he was uncaring, sociopathic.

And he had nine-tails to match his dog-like ears.

I don't suppose there's anything new to mention.

There never is Alex snapped. Having nightmares was...well, had been rare for him, at least back when he'd been a fairly normal human being. He could have lived with the occassional nightmare here and now; Lodoss was a land that suited nightmares only too well. But it was always the same character, the same monster who was tearing through everything in its way, uncaring of whatever it struck down.

Something that was becoming all to familar to Alex's waking moments.

Because with the little time he had left, Alex had turned to brooding. Never openly, and never where anyone could see it outright (though he respected Deedlit and Chiffon enough to assume they knew something was up), but still, brooding. And over and over again, he replayed the new-found violence of his current life. He forced himself to hear the grind of crushed throats, the sickening crack of bone giving way, to feel the warm gushes of blood, to taste the sweat and fear and coppery life...and most of all, to feel the rage that overtook him in a battle.

The dreams weren't an accident. He'd heard once that dreams were the mind's way of dealing with natural overflow of thought and information, and that nightmares were our way of sorting through the dark stuff. And those dreams, those memories of blood beyond anything he'd ever imagined possible, certainly beyond anything he'd actually experienced...he couldn't help but wonder, were they a warning? Or a premonition?

Was he seeing his past? Or was he writing his future?

Cyrus watched the human...no, not a human. Not anymore. Still, he watched Alex rise to leave. That's it? A little water, and then back to bed? Alex remained silent. Cyrus shook his head. I hope for your sake that you didn't wake up in the middle of the dream. You know it's just going to pick back up once you fall asleep.

I know, Alex replied woodenly, returning to his bedroll. He lay quiet for a moment, once more sharpening his ears. The rhythm never changed; he'd managed to keep from waking Deed and Chiffon. Sighing in relief, he let go of the Flowing Soul; he'd be asleep in less than a minute. He wondered at times what they'd do when he was gone. It was the knowledge that he couldn't give them anything of real value that kept him distant. He hated it, but he'd concluded that knowing they would remember him as a jerk, or at best a friend, was better than knowing they'd love him and suffer for it. Even a moment of suffering was too much, as far as he was concerned.

Yet it wasn't love that concerned him as he drifted off to sleep. Rather, his last thought was a question.

_How much of Charles Scholle, the boy who'd grown up on earth, is left? And how much is Alex Latrans, the warrior?_

--------

There is an old plot device that shows up in novels on occassion. Regarding spies, it is better to find them out and then leave them be; turning them is the most effective way of dealing with them, making them double agents. If this cannot be accomplished, then simply knowing who they are and limiting their flow of information is most effective. In other words, you tell them enemy only what you want them to know, without them knowing that you're doing it.

This is due to the simple fact that there in most governments/agencies/organizations/whatever-else-I-might-have-missed, there are too many people in the loop. Too many people who MIGHT be trained in ferreting out information, in knowing what's up, or at connecting the dots to find out what's going on. The long and the short of it is this; tracking down a spy takes a lot of work. And if you kill a spy, then his superiors are going to find out when the information well dries up, and not only is there the possibility of retaliation, there is also the unfortunate side-effect that a new spy will show up in place of the old one, and you have to expend all the time, energy, effort, and resources necessary to track down the new one.

So, again, if you know someone's a spy, don't kill them. TURN them. Make them work for you. It's simple efficiency, you understand.

This was the case for Lelwys, a man of the dokkalfar. In his late nineties, he was still young by their standards, though experienced. Growing up in the temples and caverns of his race, he'd been a thief at first, moving on to assassin when he discovered two important facts. One, he had a very short temper. Two, he happened to have a natural knack at killing people and getting away with it.

Trying to assassinate Pirotess however, had been a mistake. She had nearly killed him in less than a second, before he ever realized he'd been spotted. Being at the top of her own spy network, she'd recognized him as the culprit of several murder cases; mostly petty, though a few had been unintentionally useful to her. As a result, she'd had him nursed back to health with the intention of training him as a spy.

Two weeks later, he killed three people in his first escape.

It was then that he learned a new lesson. Namely, that he wasn't particularly hot shit. In other words, there was someone better than he was. Pirotess.

The next year of his life had revolved around torture and training, the line between the two often blurred if it was there at all. Between sorcery, psychology, and simple brute violence, they'd burned the temper problems out of him, as well as much of his remaining independence. In their place, he was being taught new skills. He was a better assassin, a better spy, and most important of all, obedient.

He'd learned the hard way. Not without incident; he'd managed to rally three fellow 'trainees' to help him try and escape, again with the hope of killing the woman who had made his life hell. She'd carved off nearly a square foot of his skin for that, then left him to rot in a dungeon without food, water, or medical attention. In the end, he'd had to escape again, just to track her down and beg for his life. After that, he served her without question. Living in equal parts fear and awe of the woman who had carved all thoughts of anything else out of him; his life had, the moment she'd accepted his pleas, been reduced to two simple ideas. The Dark Elf Pirotess, and what he could do to serve her.

It is perhaps sad that he was unique in his unflagging devotion. Those who were below him were quick to sell their services, quick to talk. And so, the tales of the unspeakable, brutal cruelty he'd suffered at her hands had reached Wagnard, who had been both quick and careful in offering a new allegiance.

Lelwys had accepted in a heartbeat. He knew how powerful Wagnard was, and precisely what he meant, not just to him, but to his tormentress as well. And the first thing he'd done after securing his position had been to track down Pirotess and inform her of his new position.

She'd been delighted. Not just with his actions, but with his immediate confession.

In short, she learned about Skurai and Kyugesu (though not directly) less than an hour after they left Castle Conquera.

--------

Ashram brushed a strand of hair away as he pulled Pirotess's naked form closer. "He intends to sacrifice the High Elf." Pirotess didn't bother to answer; he was just thinking aloud. This was the only place in Marmo safe from listeners; the only ones who listened here were those he allowed to guard him. Soul Crusher and the wraiths serving her saw to that. "I can't see him sacrificing her to anyone but Kardis; Falaris despises all things associated with light, and he wouldn't need something as potent as her life blood for anyone less. Why?"

She shrugged lazily, purring in satisfaction as she felt his hands tracing her tautly muscled stomach, tracing lower with each motion. "I...mmmm, I don't know. There are priests and sorcerers of my own people...oh...that I trust. They will know soon enough."

It was a moment that fans of the series, no matter who they were, had prayed to see. The scene with Ashram and Pirotess cuddling, basking in the afterglow. (Don't let the chains and ropes and clamps spoil the moment, just focus on the part where they cuddle cutely. Or try, anyway). The moment was spoiled quickly enough, unfortunately, as Ashram rose, slipping the sheet away.

Pirotess frowned as she watched him begin dressing. Contrary to popular belief, he DOES wear outfits that don't include his cape and armor. It's just that most of them time we see him in either battle or formal situations. Well, that, and animators too lazy to bother coming up with better/different character designs. Take this one, for example; he'd slipped into a pair of black pants with a loose white shirt laced at the throat over that (think the Dread Pirate Roberts, but with a white shirt instead of black. And no mask). "What needs to be done?"

He looked up from where he'd been pulling on a pair of riding boots. Shaking his head slightly, he turned back to the job at hand. "I intend to see to this matter personally."

She sat up in bed, the sheet pooling around her waist. Ignoring her nakedness, she stared at him, eyes wide. "Ashram, you are not the captain of the Royal Guard any longer. You are the Emperor of Marmo. You have others to do your bidding. One hunter is hardly worth your time."

He wrapped Soul Crusher carefully in a length of dust cloth, slinging the bundle across his waist, and buckling a plain, heavy-bladed rapier about his waist. "The Scepter of Domination. An artifact that legends say the gods fear. The power to control all the magical energies of Lodoss, if not Forceria itself. That is certainly something I need to deal with personally."

She shook her head. "You don't honestly think that anyone, even Skurai, could kill Shooting Star?"

He laughed darkly. "Did you know that Wagnard used to speak in admiration of Karla? He admired her manipulative nature and skills. He'll likely set Skurai against Shooting star and have someone else there to steal the Scepter in the confusion."

"So send someone to guard the scepter."

He ignored her. "Your spies have managed to keep tabs on Latrans. Where is he now?"

She stared at him. "You don't. You don't actually mean to help...no, you don't mean to have anything to do with your enemy."

He let the commanding tone slide; he rather liked it when she showed some backbone. As for helping his enemy? "Alex isn't my enemy. Not yet, anyway." He straightened, a hooded brown cloak slung over his shoulders, a satchel on his back. "Regardless, I still owe him a debt for saving Lord Beld's life from Karla. His woman's life will be repayment enough." He eyed her...appreciatively. "If you intend to come, I suggest you dress yourself. As pleasing as the view is, I would prefer not to be noticed."

She flung off the covers huffily, seizing her garments off the floor (SHE only wears the same thing over and over again) and slipping into them as quickly as she could. It irked her to no end that he expected her to follow at his beck and call, but she had little choice in the matter.

Or rather, she had ample choice. She simply had no desire to make a different one.

--------

Bewyn stifled a yawn as he watched the streams of people passing through the gates of Roid. Somehow, watching turnip carts and merchants hauling dried beef hadn't been what he'd expected when he'd answered the general call to sign up for the Valisian army. Sure, he was getting training in real fighting, and had a life in the cities now, and silver if not gold in his pockets. And sure, it made sense to promote the guys who'd been in training longer (read as: the guys who'd been stuck with guard duty before him), but still...

While the mainland forces of Lodoss hadn't suffered anywhere near the losses that would have occured in the canon, there had still been nearly ten thousand deaths on both sides. And while Flaim had suffered comparatively more, Valis had still taken the brunt of the battle. Beating back Marmo had cost nearly six thousand, five hundred men all told, several hundred of them knights, but most of all, infantry. As a result (and due to the fact that, also unlike the canon, Marmo had remained a real threat), the general call for more soldiers had been swift, and under slightly more lax requirements than had been the case.

Bewyn had actually enlisted for the war effort; he'd been garrisoned at Roid itself as a defender in case something went wrong. It was just his bad luck that the war had ended before he'd gotten a real chance to distinguish himself in the combat.

There was no doubt in his mind that he would have done well. His instructors grudgingly admitted that he had talent; he was at least as good with a sword and shield as men who'd been training for years longer than he had. He was bright enough to see the big picture, and still sensible enough to obey orders for the most part. He had everything he needed to make it in the military; he could handle being a grunt, and would be ready when it came time to be an officer.

The fact that he was tall, well-muscled, broad-shouldered, and ruggedly handsome in his armor (and therefore, the perfect image of a hero) would only make it better.

He sighed, concentrating on keeping his halberd at perfect attention. If he could just get a break...

A commotion sounded a few dozen feet away, as though in answer to his prayers.

Tapping one of the men behind him, he made sure they were on decent inspection, then began forward, carefully but confidently herding people out of the way with the shaft of his halberd. The sight that greeted him was a bit of a disappointment at first; just some travelers.

That was his first thought. Immediately on the heels of that thought was the realization that normal travelers don't go around swathed head-to-foot in hooded cloaks on fine horses. He eyed the animals appreciatively; one of them was riding a particularly fine chestnut mare, nearly scarlet in color. The other sat on a small, fine-boned yellow-gold stallion; desert-bred, if he recognized it. The third however...

He'd never seen a horse quite like it before. Tall, lightly but strongly muscled, it had a look of great speed about it. Though from the looks of it, the man on its back was either a better horsemen than he expected or suicidally confident.

Squaring his shoulders and planting his feet before the lead rider, he nodded slightly. "By order of his majesty, no man or woman is allowed to ride into the city without first stating his business. And of course, showing their face." The confident look on his face wavered under the stare he felt from inside the hood; he felt like he was staring down a bear. Abruptly, the animosity vanished, and, turning in his saddle, the lead rider nodded to his companions.

It wasn't just the guards to draw their breath as the three slipped off their cloaks. The rider on the chestnut proved to be a slender, tanned, and decidedly voluptuous woman, her white hair cascading down her back from under a tightly-wrapped desert-style turban, the lower half of her face partially obscured under a half-veil. Dressed in an odd mixture of clothing from various locales, she gave the impression of an exotic, someone who'd seen it all. The only obvious weapon on her was the recurved dagger riding low on her hip, though it was clearly expensive, the hilt forged to resemble the neck, head, and wings of some sort of fantastical bird, the sheath serving to resemble body and an almost peacock-like tail.

The second was similar to the first, though nowhere near as stacked as the first. Pretty enough though; she was wearing some kind of weird, flaring hat, but it wasn't unattractive so much as just...well, unusual. Whereas the first girl had chosen to go with loose, blousy clothes, this one was dressed in tight-fitting trews and sleeveless tunic, with sort of half-armor made to resemble a leather vest over that. A five-foot composite bow and quiver had been slung low across the small of her back, with an assortment of long and short knives alongside a basket-hilted rapier hanging from her saddle and belt.

The last, the only male in the group, looked like some sort of barbarian; shaggy-haired and with what looked like at least a week's growth of beard dotting his face, the half-tamed, poorly-groomed horse he was seated on only added to the effect. While the women had definite styles (the first obviously dressed in the style of Flaim, the other wearing what looked like Raiden fashion), his outfit was a sort of admixture of styles. He was wearing the long, loose, baggy pants of the desert tribes, but had on leather socks and straw sandles strapped on, like some sort of Kannon marsh peasant. His shirt had elements of Alan and Flaim mixed together; though tight-fitting in the body (mostly), the sleeves were long, loose, and looked like the bottom halves of the long cuffs had been sewn together to serve as pouches. Over the whole thing, he wore some sort of strange, long robe; sleeveless, with a deep V-neck and tails split side-to-side, it resembled an old tunic to a degree (1). He was also wearing a Flaim turban, the tail of its dust-cloth hanging down his back.

The weaponry was what made it really startling however; a hint of fine chain mail was just barely visible under the robe, likely sewn attached to the lining of the garment. He had a short, heavy-bladed re-curved chopper with a foot-long handle strapped to his back and one of those odd, straight, flexible-bladed swords (2) that occasionally made their way south from eastern Alecrast opposite the viciously toothed recurve dagger on his right. Slung across the small of his back was a beaded leather quiver with several overly-long arrows poking out amongs the more normal lengthed ones; there were several oddly-shaped pieces of wood poking out as well, none of them long enough to be a proper bow. Hanging from the pommel of his saddle was a warhammer on the left, an extra quiver on the right. Strapped to the rear was a sort of box-like quiver holding seven or eight javelins, pointed up and forward.

It was the lance in particular that was startling; it looked like it had been carved out of black bone, the head one of the odd, cross-shaped ones they called a yari. And copper?

The man simply sat there lightly, waiting. Recovering a bit, Bewyn held his hand behind him, waiting. It was nearly thirty seconds (most of it spent with the three looking bored) before the guard accompanying him remembered to hand him the scroll for records. Coughing, he carefully dipped the pen in the inkwell, nibbing it again carefully. "Your names?"

"Chiffon," the furthest back stated quietly, triggering a series of gasps. "Deedlit," the outdoorsy one said, glancing around somewhat unhappily, ignoring further gasps. She'd been rather happy with the past three months spent mostly out of cities. Certainly Roid was a lovely city, and it would be nice to see Etoh and Fiana again, but she still missed the forests.

"Alex," the last said simply. It should be noted that over the past months, there had been something of an explosion of people on Lodoss using the until-recently unheard name; some naming their children for that, some trying to impersonate him, and others just changing their names 'because it was cool.' So this, unfortunately, put something of a damper on their moment. I mean, really. Someone shows up using a name that's famous, but the name of someone you've never seen before, would you believe it was really them or a con artist?

Before you answer that, consider whether or not you're a trained guard who's been booting out thieves, pick-pockets, con artists, criminals, spies, saboteurs, and generally suspiscious-looking charaters for the last five months. Still gonna let them in?

Well, what matters here is that Bewyn wasn't. Eyes narrowing slightly, he marked down the name, and continued. "Purpose in Roid?"

'Alex' shrugged. "We have friends here we wanted to visit. It's been a while since we saw them."

Bewyn nodded slowly. "I don't suppose you have anyone here who could vouch for you? We've been having some problems recently with...unsavory characters."

The jibe failed to elicit a reaction. Or rather, it elicited a reaction that was precisely the opposite of what he wanted. 'Chiffon' giggled, 'Deedlit' rolled her eyes, and 'Alex' just shook his head, sighing into his hand as he rested his head there. "Try asking Merian; he's a bronze caster, works mainly with bells for the temples. He did some work for me a few months ago; he might remember me."

"A _bell-maker_. Are you sure you wouldn't like me to check with his majesty? Perhaps his daughter?"

The crowd laughed uproariously.

"What the hell is going on here? You're supposed to get people through the gates; you want to entertain people, go dance on tabletops in the mess hall."

People who'd been staring immediately found other things to do as a tall, broad-shouldered man in his thirties elbowed his way in, the badge on his shoulder marking him as a captain of the guard. He snorted irritably at Belwyn. "Should have figured you'd be here. Stop trying to find trouble; you tend to make it." Turning to the figures, he stopped cold. Belwyn felt something sink in him at the pop-eyed look on the captain's face; the man was in charge of training the newly formed Sarissan Infantry of Valis, and had something of a reputation for being a ball-breaker. What could spook him?

He snapped to attention abruptly. "SIR! My apologies, Sir! I was not aware that you would be returning, SIR!"

Alex looked like he wanted to shoot himself. Or the captain, whichever happened to be more convenient. "I'm not your commanding officer anymore...Faran, was it?"

His chest puffed out at the recognition. "I'm honored you'd remember me, Lord Latrans."

The comment, _I'm not a lord_, died on Alex's lips. Instead, he simply smiled. "You joined up a lifetime shepherd who'd never seen so much as a tavern brawl. By the end of the week, you were commanding one of the phalanxes. You led the wedge that put us on the path to victory in the Battle of the Valley. Of course I'd remember you."

Faran relaxed somewhat; it was easier to think of him as just their commander as opposed to the legend when he was there in the flesh. "Thank you sir. I'm sure that you have more pressing business than talking with me though. Go right ahead."

Silence had fallen over the crowds as they watched the Coyote ride past them. People KNEW that Faran had fought under the Coyote. They KNEW that he would recognize him. And now they KNEW the scruffy warrior riding past them was touted as one of the three strongest men on Lodoss (Kashue and Ashram held the other two positions, though people didn't like to remember that the Marmo had one of the best).

Faran turned to a chalk-faced Belwyn. "Congratulations kid. You just pissed off the guy on a first-name basis with every king and prince on Lodoss." He clapped him on the shoulder, carefully keeping any mockery from his voice. It was hard though. "You're on the road to greatness, you are." Turning, he watched his commander disappear into the crowd for a few minutes, remembering when he'd just been one more hero. With a sigh, he headed back to the guardhouse and his responsibilities.

It proved an excellent time for people to slip through the gates.

--------

Alex managed not to swallow uncomfortably as he entered the throne room. Fahn had told his people flat out that he was going to abdicate before the end of the year; that Fiana (and her eventual husband) would be taking over the monarchy of Valis. Until then though, he still headed up the kingdom.

He looked like death warmed over.

The last time Alex had seen him, at the end of the Battle of the Valley, he had been weak and injured, but...he'd always assumed that Fahn would recover. He hadn't been able to see him when he'd returned to Novice; they'd accepted the sword, then shooed him away. Still, everything he'd heard had pointed towards Fahn getting better.

The reality was, he looked like he should be on his deathbed, not his throne. He'd always been a big man, regal with his mane of hair and thick beard, the mantle of command always there. Now? Now he was just a man of large dimensions. His skin was ashen, almost papery, his hair limp. His hands, swordsman's hands for a time, were almost skeletal now. The only things about him that still pointed to any kind of vitality were his eyes.

He smiled wanly. "It's good to see you again. I feared you were lost when they told me of your injuries fighting Karla."

He knelt, Deedlit and Chiffon mirroring him on either side. "It's good to see you too." He swallowed openly this time, though it was mostly unseen, what with his bowed head. _What to say, what to say..._ "I'd only heard rumors as to your health before now. I'm glad to see most of them proved true."

Fahn chuckled, startling Alex. There had been something of the old Fahn in that. Rising laboriously, he waved aside his attendants, carefully walking forward to carefully crouch in front of him. Fahn smiled as he watched Alex openly stare as he helped him to his feet. The transformation from infirm to merely old had taken less than an instant, but its effect was profound. "I doubt the rumors told you much. They recognized the rock firefly dust you...well, dusted me with. If not for that, I'd have died instantly. That second bag didn't help as much, but it slowed down the damage enough for the healers to put me back together, more or less." He raised a hand to forestall Alex's questions as he led them towards the throne. "Hear me out, lad. I don't think I'm ever going to hold a sword again. Certainly, I'm not going to be any use on the battlefield."

His eyes turned a bit grim as he seated himself back on the throne, watching his pages scurry out with ornamented stools for the three in front of him. "There are still going to be battles, you understand. Beld abdicated the throne to Ashram, and from what our spies tell us, not only is he coming into his power fast, he's rebuilding the army just as quickly as he can manage." He shook his head. "I sometimes wonder why the gods never tried to make a counterpart for goblins or kobolds that would fight for the Light; his soldiers are coming in twice as fast as ours are." He paused, in thought for a moment.

Alex pounced on the opportunity. "I don't know if I'm going to be all that much use to you, but I'll do what I can."

A laugh rang out. Heads turned, voices rose in whispers as Kashue strode into the throne room. Alex noted idly that Fahn hadn't bothered to rise, but then, he was a king in his own throne. Alex wasn't. He rose, bowing shallowly but respectfully to the desert king.

Kashue shook his head as he took in Alex. "Not much use? I hope that's modesty, even if it is foolish modesty. We could use that brain of yours."

Alex managed a grin. "A madman's brain?"

Kashue laughed again. "Madmen are some of the most dangerous men you'll ever meet." Coming abreast of Alex, he turned and ignored him for a moment as he paid a respectful bow to Fahn. Turning back, he raised an eye at the light sword strapped to Alex's waist (he'd left everything (well, everything visible anyway) but the flexible blade with Bucephalus). "Change of tactics, eh? I'd like to see what you can do with that one of these days."

"An excellent idea," chimed in Fiana. "We've all been hearing so much about your heroic adventures (Alex struggled not to gag at the use of the H-word). Would you mind putting on an exhibition match for us?"

Alex shook his head. "I only fight when I have a chance of winning."

Kashue chuckled, but something under his tone made Alex wary. "Well, we all know that sword work isn't really your area of expertise. Suppose we make it just weapon-to-weapon? You can use anything you like."

Alex blinked. He tried to insert a word, but by that point Chiffon and Deedlit were agreeing with everyone, Chiffon somewhat proudly, Deed with something more approaching malice. I warned you, didn't I? Cyrus put in. I told you she wasn't going to forgive you with that fling you had with whatsername with the purple hair.

Giving up the battle (any good tactician knows when to cut and run), he instead shot the telepathic equivalent of a noogie at the crow. What fling? I saved Rose from getting married to that green-haired little sadist Francis, she tried to get me drunk, and I ended up running away in the night in my shorts from her entire guard.

He saw Cyrus shrug mentally. Doesn't change the fact that Deed was pissed. The crow looked around through Alex's perceptions. You do realize that Chiffon is already stripping off your armor, and that someone's been sent running for all your saddlebags?

Alex blinked. "Um guys? I can do this myself...uh, guys? Guys?"

--------

As they say in Shakespeare...

There'll be a plot in just a moment. But first, a sword-fight.

The turn-out was impressive. Etoh, Fiana, and Fahn had taken seats overlooking the practice field. Fiana was all but hanging off Etoh's arm, but surprisingly enough he seemed relatively calm about it; they'd apparently gotten a bit more comfortable in their relationship. Various other nobles were standing on the balconies to watch; Slayn and Leylia had shown up on the field proper to watch, Slayn taking the time to greet him happily, Leylia mainly standing back and looking on uncertainly. The area surrounding the clearly marked boundaries was packed with guardsmen and trainees.

Kashue watched, leaning on a chair comfortably as Alex prepared himself. The first thing he noticed was the conspicuous absence of Alex's spear. That worried him; he'd worked out several ways to deal with the reach advantage, many of which he was confident would have gained him a quick, easy victory. He was also a bit surprised to see that the flexible long sword was nowhere to be seen, the two-foot chopper and his knife strapped on instead. Again, not in keeping with what he knew of Alex's style. Lastly, he had a quiver belted across his waist, though it was incongruously open to his left side.

Oh, and he wasn't carrying a bow. Just arrows, as far as Kashue could see.

Shaking his head, he unsheathed his sword and picked up a buckler. He'd eschewed his normal plate armor, dressing instead in a padded suit of half-mail; chain with a few reinforcing plates on the shoulders, stomach, and greaves. He didn't frown when Alex simply drew his recurved dagger, his left hand resting on several odd-shaped spars of wood resting in his quiver, but he wanted to. False pride notwithstanding, he knew he was a better swordsman than Alex. More than that, he'd seen Alex fight. Bow and arrow, lance, horse-back...those were the marks of a long-range fighter. You couldn't get much more personal than a dagger. Wary for a hidden weapon or trick, he braced himself carefully.

And was met with a bit of a shock as his eyes met Alex's.

Convincing himself that he'd just made a mistake, he braced himself, and charged, sword coming around in a powerful sideways slash.

He never saw Alex move.

Those watching stared as he slipped into motion with almost brutal suddenness. Bracing his dagger hilt with both hands, he brought it around, blocking the sword stroke as he pivoted suddenly, presenting his back to Kashue as his left foot snapped backwards, striking the desert king's shin hard enough knock him off balance. Grabbing Kashue's sword wrist in his left hand, he sheathed the dagger quickly with his right, and grabbed Kashue under the plate of his stomach guard. Using a modified judo technique, he shifted their weight, and combining his own not inconsiderable strength with Kashue's momentum, he heaved the older man into a jarring impact.

It wasn't enough to knock the wind out of him, but it bought Alex a few precious seconds. Kashue was already rolling on his side, jumping to his feet warily, but any thought of attack had been driven out of his head by the suddenness of Alex's attack.

It gave Alex just enough time to pull the crossbar, limbs, and string out of his quiver and with practiced ease start snapping them together even as he jogged backwards. In less than ten seconds, he had a seven-foot longbow ready to go in his hands.

Karl had made the bow for him, based on some suggestions that Alex had made regarding modern bows from his age; most of the spring came from the arms, though the flexible riser made from black elk's horn gave a bit of extra oomph. Unlike the bows of the era, it fired from a slightly off-center grip, putting the arrow at a precisely straight line with the middle of the bow. It meant that arrows didn't need to have the degree of flex needed to fly true with a normal bow, and not only meant that he could use stiffer, truer arrows, but that he could, with his own rather mediocre skills, make arrows for himself.

For his part, Kashue was just startled. It's not every day you see someone pull a seven-foot weapon almost literally out of their ass. The hesitation nearly cost him the fight as Alex jerked six arrows out of his quiver. Five went into his left hand, point down, for later firing, the last touched the string as he drew it swiftly. Realizing that he was never going to dodge it, Kashue brought up his shield desperately, knowing despite himself that a field arrow could punch a hole in the steel with little problem.

The solid, jarring thud of the arrow was a mixed blessing.

Alex ignored the outcry following his move to turn it into a shooting match. He didn't really care; it wasn't like he was using metal arrowheads. Besides, he wasn't really as good as Kashue and knew it. Winning this match meant pulling out every surprise he could, not to mention fighting with every trick he had.

Kashue stared at the arrow on the ground; the head was just a blunt, almost spherical nub of horn wrapped in what looked like fleece. Non-lethal, though if not for the shield he'd probably be sporting a cracked rib. Frowning, he unconsciously felt himself shifting back into the old mentality of a gladiator. It wouldn't be the first time he'd fought a mismatched battle and won.

He generally didn't win all that cleanly, though.

Alex had, in the sense of fair play, given the king a chance to regain his bearings. The fact that it served his purposes contributed, though. Watching Kashue set himself, he raised the bow, and began shooting.

It was his turn to be surprised.

He'd never really watched Kashue fight in this world; he won in the canon series because he kept his head and had good reflexes, mostly. Here, he was behaving like what was expected of a desert fighter or arab; he was moving more delicately, more gracefully, his sword carving great, sweeping, slashing blows as he began closing the distance. It also helped distract Alex's aim a bit. At least in theory; he kept shooting, and they should have hit. And yet, somehow, Kashue managed to dodge each one.

The desert king had not wasted the opportunity. He watched Alex's quick-shooting technique. He'd gripped the spare arrows in his left hand just under the fletchings. As each arrow fell, he loosened his grip, flicked an arrow with his finger just enough to differentiate it better, and with a single smooth pull of his right hand he aligned the shaft, fitted it on the nock, drew, and loosed. The whole operation took little more than a second for each shot.

The speed advantage came from his not needing to reach around for the quiver with each shot. The downside was that he was firing in bursts. He could shoot quickly, but he needed that extra handful of seconds to prepare for his next burst.

And with the last of his first six practice arrows, Kashue made his move.

He'd unhitched his shield where Alex couldn't see it, and using his hilt, managed to bat it towards the archer as he charged in, his sword coming up and around for a crown-cut. Alex had been startled enough to drop a few arrows, his right hand instinctively pulling out his dagger to deflect the shield. Unfortunately, it had blocked his sight long enough for Kashue to get within range of a sword stroke.

His target was not Alex. It was his bow.

Alex's speed saved the one-of-a-kind weapon as he managed to whip it out of the way, his dagger again coming out. Snaring the edge of the blade on one of the dagger's teeth, he yanked just hard enough to prevent a succession of blows, using the gap to whip at Kashue with his bow. His left hand freed from his shield, Kashue snapped it upward, grabbing the tip of the bow. It was merest chance that he saw the sudden, incoming kick. He jerked away, and rather than striking the temple, Alex only managed to strike his cheek hard enough to make him drop the bow.

Putting some space between them, Alex narrowed his eyes, and snapped out a new quick-shot bundle into his left hand. This time however, he didn't shoot quite so quickly, using the arrows to herd Kashue, keeping him out of sword range.

Kashue panted lightly, the crowd's cheers sounding in his ears. Whether they were cheering for him or Alex was anyone's guess. Still, the fight was moving predictably now. Alex was firing carefully, sniping at him. Keeping him far away. Far enough, anyway. He'd learned what he needed to. Alex's desperate speed had him beat, and as long as he had the bow, he controlled the zone. There was no way to get close enough to strike, which was the only thing that was keeping the match going. In close, he'd be able to beat him.

Unfortunately (for Alex), there was one slight problem with using arrows. Unlike a sword, arrows eventually run out. And Kashue knew it. Alex had only managed to prepare three quick-shots; he had thirty seconds at best before he ran out of shots.

Fortunately, he had the sense to realize the limitations. He was picking his shots, delaying between them now, firing rapidly only in bursts of two or three at most, trying for joint shots (he could have gone for the throat, but the point was that they were both supposed to be alive at the end of the match). Still, it was just a matter of time.

Kashue smiled grimly. Two shots left...he dodged frantically around the sudden burst, and charged. He ignored the bow now; Alex wouldn't risk damaging it. Besides, he was throwing it out of the way as his hands went for the heavy-bladed chopper on his back.

Blade rang on blade as Alex pivoted, hands still above his shoulders, the wavy blade braced against one shoulder. He didn't bother to swing as he watched Kashue continue the attack. Uneasiness was on Kashue's face; probably trying to figure out what Alex was doing. The advantage of a big, short, heavy blade like the chopper was that you could generate insane amounts of power with it. More than enough to shatter a non-enchanted sword such as the one Kashue was currently using. The downside is that it's heavy, awkward, and almost useless for thrusting or parrying. It's a weapon almost singularly designed for hacking someone apart.

And he was using it defensively.

Kashue frowned, and abruptly stopped his whirling stroke, the sword tip coming up and around in a vicious thrust for Alex's neck. Alex whirled, the chopper wrenching up and around as he leaned out of the way of the thrust. His chopper came down as he sank into a crouch, the curve of the blade trapping Kashue's. Staying low, he released the blade and went for his dagger, the blade rising...

And he froze.

The knife in Kashue's hands was less than an inch from his throat.

Alex's had just barely scored the cloth of his inner thigh.

The deadlock lasted for nearly a minute, before the two slowly backed away. Kashue waited for Alex to retrieve his chopper before he picked up his own sword. "Interesting match. You nearly had me there for a second. Shouldn't have thrown me though."

Alex smiled; it was a bit grim, but then, so was Kashue's. "I should have known you wouldn't limit yourself to a sword. You're as dirty a fighter as I am."

Kashue chuckled. "Honor and chivalry are fine in theory. They're not much use in a fight." He extended a hand.

Alex looked at it in surprise, but after a moment accepted the hand-clasp.

It was right around then that the much-abused plot decided to reassert its prerogative, as the poor, on-the-edge-of-death-from-exhaustion rider thundered into the practice field to inform the gathered that Shooting Star had awoken.

--------

Roughly two hundred years ago, there was an acolyte of the priesthood of Myrii, born and raised among the desert people of Flaim. His name was Shahuul. Like virtually every young man of what would become the nation Flaim, he was well acquainted with the legend of the dragon-slayer, the hero destined to travel the dark and dangerous road through the belly of Fire Dragon Mountain, through rock slides and venomous reptiles, through steam jets hot enough to boil the flesh from a man's bones, to ultimately face down the legendary Shooting Star, said to be the strongest of the last five Ancient Dragons, and through battle most noble, to slay the fell beast and bring to Flaim lasting peace from the demon dragon's predations.

Unlike many of the boys around him, he actually went about this seriously. He did not abandon the quest with age. And so, he went to study all the lore of dragon-slaying, which he was to discover was a bit scant. Rather than letting this slow him down, he shifted his area of study to weaponry, tactics, and priestly magic. Shortly after his seventeenth birthday, he took his vows as a novice of Myrii, and taking leave of the temple, he shouldered his lance and shield, armored solely in his holy vestments and faith, and went forth to do battle with the dread wyrm. He braved the desert, fasting and praying in turns on the journey to purify himself for the trials ahead. For yea, only one of purest heart and body could hope to receive the blessings of the mighty and dread God of War.

Upon his arrival at the mountain, he did stop and pray for three days, resting and eating, regaining his strength. For Myrii did not grant him grace, power, or vision, and so he did, with surprising sense, sit down and start figuring out how to make do with what he had. Namely, a lance, faith, courage, and wit.

On the fourth day, Shahuul shouldered his lance, and began the trying journey along the Path of the Dragon Slayer.

And despite many set back and dangers, he did make it, and did for the first time gaze upon the sleeping form of the demon dragon he was meant to do battle with.

And this wise and eager young cleric did soil himself most righteously.

Shouldering his lance and silently blessing his decision to have extra holy vestments in his pack (he'd assumed it would be a messy thing, but he'd kind of hoped the mess would just be the dragon's blood), he did make his way back through the Path of the Dragon Slayer, and left the mountain, deciding as he traveled the markers of the various traps and pitfalls, that really, it would be best to leave this whole dragon-slaying foolishness to someone...er, better prepared.

However, having devoted so much of his time to dragon-slaying in general and slaying Shooting Star in particular, he could not rest entirely. And so it came to be that the priest of Myrii known as Shahuul did travel the length and breadth of Lodoss, taking passage even to Alecrast to learn more of the lore of the fairer continent, learning everything he could about the noble art of dragon-slaying.

And thus did it come to be that the book known as _Le Mort du Dracon_ was written, a tome of knowledge ancient and contemporary, telling all that could be told about dragon-slaying.

What follows is an excerpt from an interview with one of the only living dragon slayers of Lodoss (at the time).

_So, you want to be a dragon slayer, eh?_

_You dumb or drunk? Look at me, kid. I spent fifteen years trackin' and killin' the scaly fuckers, and look what it's gotten me. I've got one eye, one leg, and nearly lost my testicles to wyrm venom. I got enough money squirreled away that I can get good and drunk and forget about the fact that I was a royal dumbfuck, but that ain't much, let me tell ya. And as for glory and honor and all that shit?_

_How many glorious, honored heroes are stuck spending all their times in taverns and whorehouses, eh? Some of 'em, maybe, but anybody who gets honored doesn't HAVE to hang out in brothels; that's the difference._

_So you want my advice? The most important thing I can tell you about dragon slaying is this. _

_DON'T._

_But hey, that's what you want to do? Fine. No skin off my ass. Skin off of yours maybe, but no skin off mine._

The book actually has several useful passages, but that's sort of the trend that shows up a lot. Mostly people telling you to find something better to do with your time.

Alex had found a copy of it a few weeks back in Raiden. Some of what he'd read had proven untrue, or at the very least, outdated. At least compared to his (admittedly limited) experience with slaying dragons. However, and unfortunately, there was nothing there that was particularly useful when it came to considering how to slay an Ancient Dragon. It was all hearsay or legends.

In short, the only thing he learned about killing an ancient dragon from the damned thing was that it was generally agreed to be a fool's errand, and that you needed three enchanted dragon-slaying lances of Myrii. Something he was already aware of.

Something Kashue was also quite aware of. "I don't have any choice in this matter. When I took the oaths of kingship, I swore to protect my people from any threat that might appear. I swore to never abandon them, even if it cost me my life. Shooting Star is most certainly a threat, and I have to do this."

"That's idiocy and you know it. I've fought dragons before, and I can tell you that you aren't going to stand a chance against an Ancient. Unlike wyverns, it won't die quickly or easily. Unlike thunder dragons, it's not going to be a stupid animal. It's not going to wield magic or tactics against you; you can't fight this thing with tactics or clever strategy. I'll tell you what's going to happen if you try anything; he's going to spot you, most likely before you ever get a chance to attack, and he'll incincerate you because he's got nothing better to do."

Kashue shook his head as he strapped on his sword. "You wouldn't understand. You don't have a people of your own, not anymore. You blow with the wind; everywhere is your home, because home happens to be wherever _you_ are." He raised a hand to forestall arguments; for a wonder it worked. "I'm not calling you heartless or cruel. I'm not saying that you wouldn't fight for something bigger than yourself; we both know that's not true. What you don't understand is that sometimes you can't make it all work out. You can't save everyone, you can't always come out on top. Sometimes, you have to ride to your death, knowing that it's death you face."

"Why?"

He sighed. "Because that's what it means to be a man."

Alex watched Kashue stroll away, fitting his cape around his shoulders as he went. He turned to see Deedlit stick out her tongue at the retreating king. "I told you he wouldn't listen."

"Shut up," she growled, arms crossed over her vest. In case you're wondering, her normal green dress and blue leather armor ensemble had been stolen in Raiden. By the time she'd gotten it back (what parts of it had remained, anyway), it was stained, torn, and burnt; she'd been forced to chose non-elvish clothing. Another source of general snarked-off-ishness. "They never should have tried to build anything within a dozen miles of Fire Dragon Mountain in the first place. It's not even really part of Flaim; why bother defending it?"

Alex shook his head. "Volcanic soil is rich. The villages surrounding Fire Dragon Mountain are some of the only ones that can manage to get any really good crops and harvests. Besides, I doubt you were even born the last time Shooting Star came out."

She shook her head. "Alex, I understand humans a little. But this is an Ancient Dragon. They fought alongside gods as equals. You can't just face something like that, anymore than you could fight a typhoon or kill a god." (Cold comfort, considering what Alex had ahead). "When something like that comes along, you bend your neck, weather it out, and then rebuild." She shook her head. "I don't really like Kashue, but he's a good man, a good king. Flaim would be better off if he survived."

"I think he will."

She looked up suddenly. "You think..." she swallowed uncomfortably. He hadn't mentioned 'the story' as she thought of it for months. Not since before that night on the ramparts of Roid before the battle. Still... "The story?"

He turned to her, his face unreadable. "You sure you want to know?"

She shook her head. "No details. Just...do you know what's going to happen?"

He strolled over to a window, watching as Kashue, Shadam, and his riders began the long trek back to Flaim. "...Do you remember when I first admitted to...prior knowledge, back in Fortress Myce? When I told you that I was making changes, and that my knowledge would eventually become useless?" She nodded. He shook his head. "It seems I was a bit wrong. I made enough changes that this shouldn't be happening. Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect should have seen to that."

"What?"

He paused. "Oh. Sorry. Chaos Theory states that there are systems...um, it states that there are some problems, where there are so many factors, so many variables, that it's impossible to keep track of them with any real hope of logic; they're unpredictable. The example they usually give is weather, how it's impossible to forecast it really accurately more than about a week in advance. That's where the butterfly effect comes in. Supposedly, the balance of elemental forces that effects the weather is so delicate that if a butterfly flaps its wings in...say Alan, then there'll be a hurricane in Raiden instead of sunshine."

She shook her head. "That sounds ridiculous."

Alex chuckled. "There was a different story I heard once, something called Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2. There's a line where Kain says that history is a river; it can't be diverted easily. You have to manage something huge to derail or divert it." He shook his head. "It seems that my changes haven't been enough to deal with what's going to happen next."

She was quiet for a moment. "So what you're saying, is that this was all pre-ordained? That nothing can happen, that it's all going to go according to the plot?"

He shook his head. "Kain was trying to change history. The problem with trying to change what happens is that there are forces at work that weren't effected by what I changed, at least not in any appreciable way." He shrugged. "Besides, it's not like Shooting Star has been in any state to respond to my changes anyway."

"What forces?"

"You don't want to know. Trust me, you don't want to know."

She glared at him. "I hate that about you. You could tell me _something_."

He shook his head, managing a rueful grin. "I thought you didn't want to know the future?"

"I'll make an exception this one time. Who are we fighting?"

"I told you. You don't want to know."

Glaring at him, she turned and flounced off. He watched her go, waiting briefly. It made his stomach do flip-flops to subject her to this. And yet he did anyway. Any dark elves you've managed to find?

Cyrus shook his head, the intent more than the action flowing through their link. Just one, though he looks like a particularly mean bastard. Highly trained, too; he nearly spotted me once. I had to pull back far enough that I can't get too many details. Hesitation. You need to talk with her. This is ridiculous; you can't push her away, not even if you really try. Trust me on this, she'll hurt more if she loses you thinking you cared than if she loses you and didn't like you. She'll feel guilty, if nothing else.

Alex didn't move. He stayed still long enough for Cyrus to start worrying. Finally, he shifted enough to head for the stables. He'd need Achiya for this. Keep an eye on Deed, would you? Just a general idea of where the elf is should be all that I need.

--------

Chiffon let her nine-tailed pendant drop; she'd been using the citrine as a scrying crystal. "What do they mean, 'the story?'"

--------

Lelwys stifled a grunt of distaste. He was a professional spy and assassin; letting emotion get in the way of his work wasn't just unprofessional, it was suicidally dangerous. More than that, he was a man of the dokkalfar. It might surprise many (including Pirotess) to hear him tell it, but his primary emotion was pride. He would not let this fool harlequin induce him to shame.

He'd just kill him once the job was done. Which job in particular...well, that was open to interpretation.

Kyugesu ignored the elf for the most part. He didn't really need him; in addition to his large, floating, scythe-armed Death Puppets, he had others to do his work for him, among them various smaller, insectile eyes-and-ears.

The elf pointed him in the right direction, that was all.

Perhaps a quarter of a mile away, Deedlit sulked. I regret to call it that; this was something a bit more dignified, a bit deeper than that, a particular state that only young women can assume shortly after dealing with annoying males, but sulking is the closest I can come to it.

It had been nearly two and a half months that they'd been together; nearly four months since she'd first met him. Perhaps it was a short period for an elf, but she would have expected a bit more...haste, from a human being. She'd been hoping for passion. She'd been hoping for romance, and fantasy, and whimsy.

At this point, she'd consider it an improvement if he initiated a conversation more than once a week.

It was unfair, she knew (she was exaggerating), but still. She'd always imagined humans would be hot-blooded, irrational, and wild, and yes, she'd found thousands of examples that reinforced her earlier argument. Several times she'd wondered what might have happened if she'd ended up with someone like that kid Parn, an archetypical hero-in-the-making. It likely would have been glorious for a time, but sadly, it was foredoomed to failure. He might hold her interest for a time, but in all honesty, he was so one-dimensional that she doubted any relationship with him could have worked for longer than a year, not without some personality shifts on his part and a great deal of tolerance on hers.

And maybe a miracle somewhere along the line.

Alex though...it wasn't so much that he was better than the other people she'd met. Skill in a fight meant little to her. Looks weren't particularly important either (though she was glad he was handsome, even if he didn't seem to think so). He was just...well, infuriating. And perversely, she found herself attracted to it. There was something genuinely drawing about his attitude. What made it so strange was that he didn't try to do it. Truth be told, she didn't even think most people would consider his attitude infuriating; he was quiet, polite, and if not social, then at least sociable.

She sighed quietly to herself as she relaxed a bit. She'd been hugging her knees for a time, and was getting a bit cramped. Stretching her legs in front of her, she lounged against the tree trunk. A squirrel scurried over, regarding her curiously, and she couldn't help but giggle. Birds were lovely, but there was something in her that wanted to reach out for the cuddlier things. It was hard to cuddle a mass of high-strung nerves and feathers.

Her mood lightened, she turned once again to the problem at hand. Or rather, the problem that had been at hand for the last two months.

Alex's secret.

She'd been willing, for a time, to put it aside. But despite her respect for his space, and despite the time they spent together, she found him growing more distant as time went by when he should have been drawing closer. THAT was the most frustrating part of their relationship; she knew that he wanted her around. He just didn't want to have to do anything with her.

It made her wonder at times what she really was to him.

Kyugesu chose that moment to attack.

Thought took a back seat to instinct (something that would have horrified most elves if it had happened to them) as she leapt upwards, dodging a number of...harpoons? She let her eyes go out of focus a bit as her hearing pricked up; the tiny, cable-tied darts were being yanked back. Though not as a surprise attack; she'd have to remember to cut them if the opportunity presented itself.

Then her opponents presented themselves, and she realized that they were the least of her worries.

There were seven of them, altogether. The man in the middle was immediately flagged as the leader, but dismissed for the most part. He wasn't going to be the one doing the fighting.

The six others were golems of some sort, Kyugesu's legendary (in his mind) Death Puppets. Each of them was little more than a body and arms; their bodies resembled squat, upside-down bowling pins with a jagged-toothed face mask in the center of the upper bulb. Where arms might have been were relatively short spars attached to four-foot, wicked-looking scythe blades. It made them look more insectile than anything else.

They wasted no time attacking; she only had time to draw a pair of long-bladed daggers (her rapier would snap against them) before she leapt away.

Kyugesu snorted disdainfully as he watched the elf dodge. "Dumb bitch. Shouldn't have brought all of them. It's not like she's got any chance of hurting them."

This was unfortunately accurate, for several reasons. Deedlit fought as best she could, and was easily dodging the puppets (for the most part), but she was in trouble and knew it. They were plated in steel, and unlike a knight in similar armor, they didn't have any soft parts that she could get at through the joints. Being outnumbered would also take its toll; she couldn't even TRY getting close enough to inflict any serious damage before one of the other puppets came back to strike.

But the biggest problem was the simple fact that she wasn't strong enough to hurt them. They wouldn't feel pain, they wouldn't feel compassion, they wouldn't let chivalry distract them...they would simply attack until she was dead.

She let out a lady-like grunt as one of the puppets rose to face her, the others too far away for once to back it up. Seizing her advantage, she kicked off against the air, sylphs giving her traction. Flying close, she dodged the first two blows of the scythe arms, blocked the third, and ignored the fourth; it was already blocked by previous arms. Finally having closed the distance, she drove a dagger under the edge of its mask, and proceeded to lever it out of the way while...

Wait.

Her left arm wouldn't move.

Sparing a glance, her eyes widened. The puppet had managed to scissor its arms together, trapping the blade of her left-hand dagger. She released the dagger, her hands flying to draw another one, but it was already too late. The other five puppets, all of whom had been 'too far away,' launched their harpoons. None of them drew blood; they weren't trying too.

The puppet closest to her was their target.

It's arms dropped as the others reeled in on their darts, slamming it into her even as the cables grew tight enough to bind her.

Kyugesu shook his head, laughing as she landed. "Easiest money I ever made." He grinned wider at the indignant fury on her face. "Oh, what's the matter, feeling sorry? Nobody's ever faced my puppets and lived." He paused. "Well, no one's ever won against them, anyway." He turned back. "Hey, pointy," he bellowed, "where're we taking her, anyway?"

Silence.

Snarling under his breath, the bounty hunter pulled out his over-sized spear. "Gonna kill that fucking pointy when I find him..."

"What do you want with me? What does Marmo want with me? Why keep me alive?"

He started, turning to her. "What makes you think Marmo's got anything to do with it?" He leered at her. "Lotsa guys might pay for a cute little elf wench like you."

"The 'pointy.'" She frowned distastefully. It was too stupid to be a real slur; pointy ears, indeed. "High elves wouldn't have sent you, they'd have sent an elf. And wood elves wouldn't have cared enough. That leaves dark elves, and the Marmo."

He grinned. "Not bad, wench." He shrugged. "I'll let you find out the hard way."

Deed turned her head slightly. "No, you won't."

The fireball flung him off the branch, bursting on impact.

Fifty feet away, Chiffon took a deep breath, stilling her worries as she readied another Flameshot. Alex would be cutting those lines shortly; it was up to her to anticipate where the puppets would be when the lines went slack.

Deeper in cover, Alex drew and loosed as quickly as he could, the _Houdama_ driving his arms until they seemed more a blur than flesh and blood.

Five arrows lanced out. Five cables snapped, just as Deedlit's rapier sprung from its sheath, driving furiously into the thing's mask and down the length of its body, finally giving her the outlet she needed for her anger.

Kyugesu groaned as he sat up; the shot hadn't killed him, but it hadn't been pleasant. What was worse, she was free now, and the damned Coyote was in it now. He grinned nastily, covering his unease. "Wanted to fight him anyway." Levering himself to his feet with his spear, he shot into the trees and the source of the arrows, dodging the spells being thrown his way.

Alex spotted him coming, and frowned; the guy seemed familiar from some anime, but he couldn't place it. Certainly not Meiking, or Record of the Lodoss War though. Ignoring it, he ignored the man as well as he kicked off from the branch, his bow broken back into its part as he took the spear into the fray.

Deedlit hadn't even bothered trying to destroy any more of the puppets; Chiffon had torched one of them, and another was dead by her hand, and she felt more like killing something that bled. She passed Alex in midair as his yari clove one of the puppets from top to bottom. She was grateful for him showing up, but she still wasn't too happy with him, after all. She'd thank him later for showing up.

Kyugesu smirked as Deedlit shot upwards to meet him. Raising his spear, he let a crackling charge of mana build up for a moment before he swung downward, sending the electrical blast towards her.

Wagnard had specified alive and 'untouched.' A little bit burnt probably wouldn't be a problem.

Deed's eyes had widened at the sight, but nothing more. Summoning the sylphs, she constructed a tiny platform out of them, and kicking off, managed to redirect herself out of the way of the blast. Reflexively watching it, she gasped as she realized that he'd had another target in mind. "Alex!"

Alex, having landed all of a second ago, turned to look upwards, and thus missing completely the sword that had just planted itself in the ground in front of him.

The electrical discharge crackling over the unexpected violet-energy dome...that part he recognized.

At that point, it all just sort of started to snowball. The dark elf who'd ostensibly been guiding Kyugesu showed up long enough to ram a rapier through the base of his skull. Pirotess arrived moments later, a severed head cradled in her arms. Apparently, 'Kyugesu' had been a puppet himself (makes sense though; a guy who uses golems to fight for him probably isn't going to be the most likely to risk his own neck).

That was all eclipsed by the arrival of Ashram...

To be continued...

(1) - He's wearing a hanbok; the traditional garment of a Korean scholar. It resembles a kimono to a degree, though it's designed to be worn over pants.

(2) - The jian, or chinese straight sword. Known most commonly right now as the so-called 'tai chi sword.'

Author's Notes: While I was writing this chapter, something occurred to me, spurred on in no small part by the criticisms that I've received for writing a self-insert. People have complained that I'm not putting in enough characterization for the minor characters. I've reflected on this, and there's something I have to wonder now.

How much characterization have I done on the MAIN characters? I mean, really? With the exception of Alex, and MAYBE Ashram, have I made any of my characters grow? There is breadth to them, but most of them just serve as scenery or eye-candy (my apologies to those who like Chiffon). What characterization I have done seems to revolve around building relationships with Alex, and that's about it. I'm still writing, never fear, but I have to wonder. There are two problems as I see it. The biggest problem is that I'm staying true to the basic Lodoss plot line, and that limits me, because so much of the canon was oriented on the development of the Group character as opposed to the members of the group.

The other problem I find myself in is that most insidious plot of fanfiction; ready-made characters. I don't HAVE to develop the other characters as much as I do Alex; if you're reading this, you already know who Deedlit is, and Ashram, and Karla, and all of them. So I can get by, because any gaps in the character web you'll instinctively fill in.

But maybe that's a good thing; you get to build the story and the characters a bit yourself.

Sorry if this seems out of place, but I just wanted to get it out of my system. What's below I wrote earlier, just as a bit of a rant. I wasn't in the best of moods, and feeling a wee bit defensive and sullen.

Not much to do with the story now. Just sort of a mini-rant here, an observation that I have had regarding myself in particular and otaku in general. Look at the guys who write fanfiction. Artists who draw Fanart and doujinshi. The cosplayers, the convention jockeys. These are people for whom it's not just about killing some time with a cartoon from overseas with a different style, or a video game dealing with stuff/characters you're not going to find elsewhere. For the serious otaku, and trekkies, and all the other fanatics out there, it's a way of life. A means of immersion in the series.

It is my ambition to be a professional writer someday. Specifically, a sci-fi/fantasy writer. I can't make a sweeping generalization about them the way I do about otaku. What I can say is this. I see writing science fiction as a way to take gainful employment in a profession that does not just enable, but require its participants to completely immerse themselves in a world that is partially or completely up to them. It's not just ego, or a god complex. It's about making the world exactly what you want it to be, and not just for the sake of story-telling.

Now I'd like you to ask yourself something. Is this the action, the ambition of someone who thinks the world is great, and pure, and wonderful, and full of hope and light and dreams that come true? Or is this someone who is a bit cynical, slightly jaded, and all-in-all, utterly convinced that the real world sucks, and that he doesn't have to go there?


	14. Chapter 13: Reptiles and Revelations

_**Chronicles of Murphy**_

_**Book of the Accursed**_

_**Chapter Thirteen**_

Reptiles and Revelations

"What do you hope to find?"

Slayn started at Leylia's voice. "What?"

"What do you hope to find?"

He was silent for a moment. What DID he hope to find? Leylia hadn't sensed anything. Neither had Neese, or Etoh, or any of the rest of the clergy of Lodoss. So why was he doing this? Why was he so worried?

Shrugging his pack a bit more tightly, he smiled reassuringly. "Truth be known, I'm not really sure what I expect to find." He chuckled. "I don't hope to find anything. All I know is that there's something going on right now that defies explanation, something that's been worrying me for the past several months. Almost since I first left Zaxom."

She smiled back, one hand reaching out to reassuringly grasp his shoulder. "There was a war stirring, if you recall. And a certain..." her smile turned sad, "nuisance, going about. It would have been enough to worry anyone."

He shook his head as he watched the novices finish loading their horses. He'd resolved to head back to Moss, and ask Wort for advice. He'd considered taking a boat to Raiden and then heading south; it would have meant nearly a week of extra travel, but at least with that they wouldn't have to deal with the Dwarves' Great Tunnel again. In the end though, Leylia had convinced him that Wort might not necessarily be the only source of information. He might not even be the best, as unsettling as that might have been. And if they traveled overland, there was a good, or at least reasonable chance for them to find something along the way.

Still...

"It wasn't Karla," he said plainly. She winced, but didn't seem to be that honestly upset about the name; she was making progress there, at least (at last). "I don't know what it is, but..." he sighed. "It didn't end when we sealed Karla away. If anything, it became worse."

Leylia was silent. Sensing she was deep in thought, Slayn chose to remain silent as well. When she finally spoke again, they were nearly a mile down the road, and far outside of Tarba. "You make it seem as though whatever Karla was up to, she was somehow preventing a greater calamity, something that you've sensed, but also something that the entire priesthood of Lodoss has somehow failed to notice."

Slayn winced. There was a distinctly frosty note to her voice.

She continued all the same. "If you're right, what kind of problem could it possibly be? I don't mean to be rude, but the only thing you can do that we can't is cast spells as a wizard. I just can't see some sort of threat showing up that was entirely arcane in nature." She smiled apologetically. "At least, I can't see a magical threat powerful enough to be sensed over the entire continent, one that no one else could feel."

"What makes you think no one else feels it?" Slayn replied. Noting the surprise on her face, he shook his head worriedly. "I might just be paranoid, I admit. I might be reading into things that aren't really there. It's just..." he sighed. "Over the past two months, every wizard, witch, warlock, sorcerer, rune-caster, and village herbalist that I've run into has been agitated. Man and woman, old and young, serious or even just showing a passing interest in the arcane arts, they've all been on edge."

"Coincidence."

Slayn shook his head again; she didn't really look convinced of it herself. "Leylia, I've met nearly forty spell-casters in the past two months, some of them more than once, sometimes only in passing. I refuse to believe...I CAN'T believe that they'd be in a bad mood just in passing." He tried to grin a bit, softening the topic. "I'm not that abrasive, am I?"

Leylia didn't respond to the quip. Deep in thought, she mentally shuddered, but she didn't think she had much of a choice.

She was going to have to go digging through Karla's left-over memories. She'd need to wait until they stopped for the evening; she could at least write it off then as simple nightmares. "I really hope you're wrong Slayn. The war is over, and everyone has a lot on their plate. It's only natural for them to be a bit...overwrought about all the changes that are going on."

Slayn didn't shake his head. He could have, he wanted to, but he didn't. He knew that Leylia was just fooling herself. She knew it. Still, there was no reason to bring attention to it. No reason to force her to see...worries. Quite possibly groundless worries.

And quite possibly prophetic as well.

I hope I'm wrong too.

--------

Shadam looked upward uneasily. They were still at least two days from Fire Dragon Mountain, but that was by horse. Shooting Star was quite capable of flying down to them and incinerating the whole detachment as a way to kill some time.

Kashue grinned at his vizier. "Stop worrying. Even when he was active, Shooting Star never ventured very far from his lair. I doubt he'd do it now just to inconvenience some insignificant humans."

Shadam nodded absently, but continued looking. He'd been the one to tell that to Kashue in the first place. Still, he recognized the suggestion for what it really was; morale-boosting. He looked around at the men accompanying them. Some were confident. Some were even openly contemptuous of the beast they would soon be facing. Some, like that Parn fellow and his friends, were apparently quite eager. Yet even they gave in to the slightest emotion if you knew what to look for.

Fear.

Shadam had been born a simple desert barbarian. He'd joined Kashue, despite the man's youth, when he'd been nothing more than a mercenary. Regardless of how young he had been though, Shadam had been struck by one attribute that outshone any other man he'd met. Kashue listened. Though young, and confident (though the term that had come to mind at their first meeting had been something along the lines of 'full of piss and vinegar'), he wasn't a fool. And more than that, he valued good, or even mediocre advice. He knew sense when he heard it, and usually implemented sensible suggestions, save when they ran counter to his own designs.

Shadam knew that if nothing else, Kashue encouraged fear. Not because it kept people in line, but rather because it kept them on their toes. He smiled briefly at a memory of the salle that had been erected for strategy lessons and gaming; inside, over the entrance's lintel, had been carved a message that Kashue had taken from Shadam's earliest lessons.

"Fear keeps us alive."

There were quite a few on Lodoss who might despise fear. Truth be told, most in Flaim despised it too. Despite that however, he doubted there was a single force on the desert that would spare you shame for being afraid.

His confidence restored, he reined his horse back, riding for the rear of the line.

Kashue watched him go, but his mind was elsewhere. Against any other opponent, he would have been plotting his strategy, but that wasn't really an option here. Battle with Shooting Star was pure and simple, and that was perhaps what made the damnable beast so dangerous. It didn't really matter where you were when you loosed your attacks when your opponent's entire body was covered in iron-hard scales several inches thick. Who cared how solid your infantry formations and cavalry were, when your opponent would be a thousand feet in the air, and still high enough to incinerate everything that caught its eye? What point in trying to ready the battlefield when you were going to fight something in its own lair, a lair in which you knew that no one had ever dared to enter?

No, Kashue had little hopes for outthinking his opponent. There was nothing to outthink. He could only pray that the lances he'd given orders to forge would be ready, and that he hadn't pinned all his desperate hopes on a thousand years of legends that were false.

Still, he had two days. And like many men who ride to their possible deaths, he didn't spend it thinking about what was to come, he spent it thinking about what had been. He considered those last little things that would drive him mad if he didn't resolve them now.

He thought about foes he might never get the chance to fight (he would have relished the chance to face Ashram before Soul Crusher had come into the equation). He thought about allies he might never see again (he'd miss everyone, but Jester most of all, certainly; the dragon-riding prince had saved his ass more times than he could count. More than that, he'd been like a brother to him, his earliest great ally, the man who'd backed him when he'd built Flaim).

He prayed that he would see the end of this battle through, a battle that there was little chance of winning.

--------

Later that night...  
On reflection, Kashue had to stop and wonder if he should just pray to last until the battle began. Somehow, this hadn't been quite what he'd expected.

Alex showing up to help out? Not expected, not unexpected, and not particularly welcome. Mainly because he couldn't see what possible use the lancer would be. Deedlit showing up? It was pretty clear that she'd come with Alex and not for the dragon; she'd been vehement about not wanting anything to do with the several-thousand-ton demonic killing machine. Though he couldn't help but wonder lately if she came FOR Alex or just sort of came in the same direction he was going. Chiffon showing up? Acceptable; useful, at least potentially. He'd heard in passing that she'd been trained as a fairly competent and extremely powerful sorceress; hopefully she'd have some powerful shielding or protection spells for the fight to come.

Mutters from his men broke into his disgruntled musings. Looking up, he watched as nearly a score of his men argued, shifting their swords uneasily in their sheaths, glaring at the unwanted figure in their midst.

He shook his head. "What the hell were you thinking, Alex?"

Ashram didn't smirk. He could have very easily; the tension in the camp amused him to no end. Still, he chose not to. For all the little respect he felt for most of the men here, he still felt that it would have been unconscionably rude to kill his host's retainers, and he was certain that if he did anything other than glare coldly at everyone around him, he'd be forced to kill at least half the camp before the night was ended.

Next to him and a bit behind, Pirotess didn't smirk either. Unlike Ashram, choice had little to do with her choice of expression; rather, she chose not to openly scowl. This whole situation felt wrong to her, wrong on more than a few levels.

The only reason Ashram should even be in Flaim should have been either to negotiate a surrender from Kashue or to wage the war prior to negotiating that surrender. This seemed...almost altruistic. Not entirely foreign on Marmo, but rare all the same. And even after almost a full day of arguing and explanation, she still didn't understand why he felt he owed Alex a debt.

She just thanked Falaris that whatever debts he felt he owed, he still regarded Alex as an enemy.

Alex ignored the tension in the camp. He'd created it, but oddly enough, he didn't care. Well aware of the fact that actively creating dissent was...uncharacteristic for him, he still didn't care. It was the endgame. He had to fight Shooting Star, he had to fight Wagnard (twice, at most), and then he had to deal with Kardis. He'd seen it all done before, he knew what needed to be done. After that...

Cyrus had informed him that at the rate he was using his powers, he had roughly three months left to live. That was assuming he didn't burn through too much extra in the fights to come, but still. Three months left to live, and all of it numb.

THAT, he was convinced, was Karla's real revenge. He couldn't even do anything...shall we say 'stimulating' before he died.

Slumping against a cactus, ignoring the scratchy noises of thorns against his rough canvas sun cloak, he stared listlessly into the desert. It might have been the desert, it might have been Lodoss, it might have been the realization with Ashram's arrival that it was finally almost done. It might even have been the realization as they traveled here, the shock when Kashue and Ashram came face to face and didn't immediately try to mince each other; the realization that he HAD made significant changes despite Wagnard and Kardis forcing the plot back to the canon.

All he knew was that he was tired. He was finally tired of it all.

He would never have believed it might happen a year ago. How much time had he spent dreaming of things like this, of actually getting to be part of the stories he read and loved, rather than just being the spectator? How badly had he wished for the chance to do something BIG, to do something spectacular? How often had he wished for the power to finally ACT on some of the impulses he'd had?

He had the power. He had the opportunity. He had the significance. And now, he just wanted it to all be over with.

Maybe it was because he'd always assumed he'd finish things with a happy ending.

"Is that actually comfortable?"

He looked up; he hadn't bothered concentrating enough to stay aware of his surroundings; Deed hadn't had to work to sneak up on him. He made a mental note to keep his concentration up; the ignominy of ending this from a scorpion's sting or snake's bite would be mortifying. Looking over, he noticed her worried look. Checking back, he confirmed that none of the spines had managed to pierce his chain mail, and shrugged. "It's not as bad as it looks."

She stroked one of the spines, hissing quietly as she managed to prick her finger. Gazing at the tiny drop of blood, she gave him an even look. "I'll take your word." Slipping to the sand next to him, she followed his gaze out towards the setting sun. "What were you thinking about?"

He was silent for a while, but answered, "the past."

She looked up, startled. Blinking at him, she managed a smile. "I would have thought you were thinking to the future." She leaned back, her arms wrapped around her legs. "To how it's all going to end."

Alex's snort caught her off guard. "I've spent the last three months thinking about the ending. I've done all I can, and am QUITE finished with worrying about that."

She looked at him, the worry on her face becoming more acute. "That's not like you. There's always been another plan, another idea. Why not any more, all of a sudden?"

He shrugged. "The story's almost over."

She was silent for a time (he didn't realize she was waiting for something more). "That's it?" she finally asked. "You're telling me that the story's going to be over?" She shook her head in exasperation. "Alex, I don't know if you realize this, but we're not just characters in a story. There's going to be more to deal with after the story's done."

He blessed his lack of body control at that moment; he didn't have enough involuntary reaction to look as queasy as he was sure he should have felt. "I know you're not just characters, but...Deed, every plan I've made, everything I've done that seemed 'genius' was due almost solely to the fact that I knew what was coming. I could prepare, because I could anticipate everything that was going to come. In less than two months though, that's all going to end. I won't have anything else to go by."

He started as she smacked him in the head. "So you're going to be stuck as normal?" She laughed under her breath. "Welcome to Lodoss. You've finally joined the rest of us." Looking into his eyes, she managed a smile. "It's hard to come to terms with, I know. But you haven't been just gliding along on other people's information all this time, you know. The last three months, when we were just roaming around...you told me yourself that wasn't part of the story. It was just something you wanted to do." Standing, she placed her hands on her hips and mock-scowled at him. "So stop griping. You've learned enough about Lodoss in general that I think you can bring yourself to live here. So cheer up. That is an order."

He looked up at her incredulously. What happened to little miss Snarky? Chuckling, he stood up, grinning at the sudden, involuntary glower in her eyes. It must have been hard, trying to dress down someone who towered nearly a full head higher than you were. "That's actually what I was thinking about, you know." Seeing her confusion, his grin broadened into a genuine smile. "How you used to act. You've been irritated with me almost non-stop since we left the Valley, all those months ago. It's nice to see you being...well, perky again."

She blinked, eyes comically wide, ears drooped. "Oh. I...I didn't realize. You'd been kind of...well, irritating, and it never occurred to me that you'd notice..." she blushed. "Well, I didn't think it was that bad..."

He looked at her for a moment in confusion. "Three months of sniping and arguing doesn't seem like something wrong to you?" His grin reappeared. "That's normal for elves, isn't it? High elves anyway. Being all but immortal and all that, I bet a normal argument lasts years for you guys, doesn't it?" The indignant look (and becoming blush) were all the answer he needed.

Deed leapt high enough to smack him in the head again, unmindful of the fact that he was still laughing at her. "We do not!" Turning up her nose, she glowered at him with as close to a superior air as she could. "I'll have you know, high elves – no, all elves happen to be better than simple arguing."

"Which is why you're arguing with me right now, over precisely...nothing."

She flushed; she hated when he did this. "I said elves don't argue." He couldn't help it any longer.

"Damn it Alex, stop laughing at me!"

--------

"WHAT?!"

Lelwys kept his head down. "Yes, I'm afraid that Kyugesu has failed."

"YOU IMBECILE! I DON'T CARE ABOUT SOME BOUNTY-HUNTING FOOL, WHAT ABOUT ASHRAM?!"

Lelwys ignored him. "The black knight killed Kyugesu. Why he was present, I couldn't say."

It was the wrong thing to say; Wagnard was insane, not stupid. "I wonder indeed." Eyes flaring, he glared hotly at the dark elf. "Baylos, almighty power of fiery destruction..."

He hadn't expected Wagnard to kill him, but that didn't prevent training and reflex from taking over. Seconds before the completion of the spell, he invoked his race's powers, vanishing in a streaking of the air.

Snarling, Wagnard lashed the spell against the nearest patch of bare stone. The burst and crackle would have been FAR more therapeutic accompanied by screams of pain.

Stalking around, he considered his position. Going around Ashram hadn't been particularly difficult, but he needed to make it seem at least in part that he hadn't been going against the greater interests of both Marmo and Ashram himself. Possible; he'd make sure and have one of his acolytes implicated in a sacrificial ritual of some sort; a high elf would have been excellent in any case, not just for his own purposes.

As for the scepter...well, securing anything of great power, magical or otherwise was perfectly in character for a Marmo. If Ashram got a hold of it beforehand, he could make it seem as though he'd merely been intending the scepter to be given either to him or Narse for safe-keeping.

If not...

He allowed a skeletal grin. If it came into Wagnard's hands first, then it hardly mattered, now did it?

--------

_(Flashback) _

_Ashram looked up curiously as he finished unpacking his armor. He doubted he'd need it, and truth be told it wasn't the best idea in the world to go charging into the deserts of Flaim in glossy black steel plate, but he did have an image to maintain. Besides, among the many enchantments he'd had woven into his armor was one that kept him comfortable regardless of temperature. "What do you want?" _

_Chiffon watched him quietly for a while...just watching. He didn't seem to think much of her; when she failed to immediately respond, he just finished taking his armor plate off the packhorse and began to strap it on. "Why?" _

_He paused in the act of strapping his vambrace, looking at her coldly. She elaborated. "Why are you here?" _

_He ignored her, turning his attention back to his armor. It would take some time to don it properly, and he didn't want to have to gallop through Flaim with the damned thing chafing him. _

_Chiffon watched him for a moment further, and finally spoke again. Oddly enough, it wasn't directed towards him. "First he killed your men at Fortress Myce. I didn't see that; I only heard of it later. Then he galloped into Kannon and stole the royal family right out from under your nose. I didn't see that either, truth be told; I only saw the aftermath. Then you captured him, and kept him alive. Beating him day after day, but never asking any questions." _

_She finally turned back to him, and despite himself, he started. Not fearfully; it would take more than a half-breed witch to do that. No, he started in surprise at the depth in her eyes. _

_He felt like he'd been swallowed in a vortex. _

_Chiffon didn't realize, or didn't care about the effect she was having on him. "I've been trying to understand you for a long time, Ashram. You let Alex live, time after time. You chose not to retaliate at Fortress Myce. You chose not to execute him, once when you first captured him, and again after he helped me escape. You let us both go in the forest after he finally managed to escape. And if I'm to understand it correctly, the two of you fought a cooperative duel in the Valley. Less than a half an hour later, you saved his life again from Karla...right after he seemingly tried to assassinate Beld, the ruler you personally nursed back to health on Marmo." She shook her head. "You're not altruistic Ashram. No one would believe that. You might believe in a debt, but you wouldn't go out of your way to come and repay it." _

_Ashram snorted as he buckled on one of his bracers; he hadn't bothered to stop arming himself as she talked. "You presume a great deal about me, witch." _

_"I'm a sorceress, not a witch," she corrected gently. "I just want to know something Ashram. What do you think that Alex is going to do for you?" _

_"You presume a great deal." Ashram paused; looking at her curiously, he let his eyes narrow. Tiny spikes of aggression in her eyes; was she angry? "My plans and my intentions are no concern of yours, witch." _

_"Alex is my concern," she replied quietly. "If you've finally decided it's time to try and kill him, you're going to be sorely disappointed." _

_Soul Crusher flicked out; he didn't care about killing or even harming the girl, but she needed to know her place. The blade streaked for her neck... _

_And rebounded. _

_His eyes bulged; he'd fully intended to stop the blow, but there wasn't any magic that should have been powerful enough to affect Soul Crusher through its demonic aura. _

_Chiffon took advantage of that moment of surprise to calmly grasp the tip of the sword between two slender fingers... _

_...and channel a lightning spell directly into Ashram's plate mail. _

_The demon within the sword acted immediately to try and quell the spell, but without Ashram's will reinforcing her, there was little she could do. It only took a moment of pain for his instinct to reassert itself, but Chiffon hadn't intended to cause any real harm either. _

_She watched him as he snapped to his feet, both his and Soul Crusher's killing intent melding in the night around her. She didn't bother to fight the fear; she'd been afraid all her life. Fear was simply one more thing for her to endure. "Alex seems to think that there's a good reason for you to be here. I don't agree, but I'm willing to trust him. But I'm warning you; if you try to harm him, I'll do everything in my power to kill you." _

_Ashram snarled at her; the wound to his dignity stung far worse than the shock. "I'll kill you soon enough, witch. And a better place the world will be for one less of your ilk." _

_Chiffon nodded. Perhaps. "I don't want us to misunderstand each other," was her only reply. _

(End flashback)

Cain wished he had a head to shake. He would have shaken it now if he'd had it. _That was, without a doubt, the most insane, most dangerous, COOLEST thing I have ever seen you do._

Chiffon examined the pendant dangling in her hands; they wouldn't stop shaking. "I can't do anything to him, can I?"

Cain mentally 'pshaw'ed. _You did something that first time didn't you? I doubt anyone's gotten the drop on Ashram like that in decades._

She shook her head. "It was a bad idea, Cain."

_Yep. _

They both whirled, eyes widened (in Chiffon's case), cat's eye asterism turning to a slit (in Cain's case).

Cyrus looked between them both; Alex was busy in Kashue's tent, and he'd already blocked out any link for the time being. He just counted himself lucky that Alex didn't care when he did this. If he ever...check that. WHEN he found out what Cyrus did during those times, he was very likely going to wonder what Crow tasted like.

Still, if there was one thing he'd learned, you had to do what was in your nature. So he tricked and meddled and talked far more than he needed to. _Alex wouldn't have approved of that, you know,_ he said conversationally. Chiffon couldn't read his body language (neither could Cain, actually), so neither realized just how pleased he was that Chiffon didn't seem to suddenly lose the will to live when she heard that; Cain and Deedlit had managed to give her a sense of self that was strong enough to deal with the idea of losing Alex's approval. Made things easier for him. _Though not because you attacked him; he'd just be irritated that you showed Ashram how powerful you've become when he didn't need to know it. He shrugged, his wings mantling over his back. Me? I think it's LONG since time somebody gave the boy one upside the head._

Chiffon nodded dumbly. _Why do the weird things that shouldn't be able to talk but can anyways always come to me?_ she wondered idly. "Um...thank you."

Cyrus shrugged again. Like I said, it's past time somebody did that. _But that's not the real reason I'm here._ He took the spiritual equivalent of a deep breath. _How much do you know about what happened to Alex when he fought Karla?_

Chiffon felt something inside her turn to ice. She'd noticed...something, but neither she nor Cain had been able to figure it out. And after seeing how he'd reacted when Deedlit tried to ferret anything out of him, she'd wisely chosen not to bring it up. "Only that he's hiding some of the damage he took."

Cyrus winced. Well, that meant she'd believe him; whether that was good or bad remained to be seen. Well, yes. It's a bit of a long story...

--------

"THAT is the sum of your strategy?"

Kashue's hand unconsciously clenched; he knew better than to let it rest on either his hilt or scabbard, but still... "If you have a problem, you're welcome to leave." And good riddance.

Ashram ignored him as he stared at the map and piles of notes on the campaign table. "I've seen Narse several times on Marmo; I've been in his presence. And by all accounts, Narse is weak compared to Shooting Star." He turned a flat look on Kashue. "I doubt that Soul Crusher and the Holy Sword combined could handle Narse. And you mean to tell me that you're resting your hopes entirely on three magical lances?"

Shadam crossed his arms. "The legends and lore of the Dragonslayer have been passed down through the tribes of Flaim for as long as there have BEEN tribes of Flaim; it is well known that the God of War was the greatest slayer of dragons; his hatred of dragons, particularly ancient dragons is the stuff of legends. If ANYTHING is likely to harm Shooting Star, it will be His blessing."

Ashram didn't sneer, but his manner said quite clearly what he thought of that. "Regardless of whatever blessings the god may grant, this isn't going to work." He let a spike of killing intent meld with Soul Crusher's aura; it wasn't much, but it was enough to shut them up. Granted they were training drawn swords on him, but at least they were silent. "I'll freely admit that I don't know very much about the art of enchanting or blessing arms and armor, but I DO know that the power of any mystical enhancement is directly based on how much time is invested in it. I have something of a hard time believing that three lances made over the course of a few days will be much use."

"Compared to a sword that gained its power in a single moment of bloodshed?" Kashue asked pointedly. "Keep in mind that these lances are being forged not by powerful priests, but by an ENTIRE priesthood. The hammer strikes are the counterpoint and tempo for holy songs and prayers to Myrii; they are being blessed not by archbishops or head priests, but by every man and boy in the temples, every moment of their construction."

"Not to mention," Shadam felt it necessary to add, "that these lances are being created SOLELY for the purpose of dealing damage to the Ancient Dragon Shooting Star. They are in every possible way meant to be weapons of Bane."

Ashram hid his surprise; the idea of an entire priesthood throwing itself cooperatively into something like that was foreign to him. The idea that they would spend so much time, energy, and concentration on something that might very well never harm them was hard to believe. Though he would mentally concede the point to Shadam; that much power, focused ENTIRELY on the singular purpose of killing the dragon might do some damage. All he said however was "we will see how effective they are, I suppose."

Everyone in the tent seethed.

Alex watched quietly, his hands lightly on his lance. He knew without any doubt that Ashram wouldn't be the one to strike the first blow. It didn't change the fact that he would do absolutely nothing to forestall a fight other than that; if it came to that, Alex had every intention of braining the fool who drew on Ashram before he could get himself killed. The last thing he needed was another excuse for Marmo to attack.

Not that they ever needed them; it was the principle of the thing.

Mainly, he wondered what he had to expect. He'd been worried ever since Ashram had shown up to fight Shooting Star...well, if not alongside him, then in the general area to the side of him. Wagnard had made his first move on Deedlit; he'd end up making a move on Shooting Star too. So the question was, who would he send in Ashram's place? With Pirotess here, he doubted that it would be Dark Elves. It didn't have to be strong enough to kill or even seriously harm Shooting Star; the priest that would no doubt be accompanying the second Marmo contingent would only need someone potentially powerful enough to be a real threat to Shooting Star.

Well, enough of a serious threat that the dragon might not bother paying attention to the larcenous priest.

Alex started; he hadn't realized they'd been talking to him. "I'm sorry, what? I was lost in thought."

Kashue frowned. "I was wondering what your thoughts on the plan were."

Alex shrugged. "I don't know much about slaying ancient dragons; I doubt I could contribute anything that you and Ashram wouldn't have already covered."

Kashue nodded calmly. "Anything would be better than nothing; NONE of us have any insights into dragon-slaying."

Alex nodded idly. "I fought a dragon once; just a small one, and I had a lot of help, but we managed to kill it in the end." He frowned in thought. "Shooting Star is bigger than most castles; he won't be able to keep track of lots of targets. And unlike a castle, he only has one defender; himself. Swarming him, or at least attacking him from lots of sides will be the best. Assuming that you can keep out of the way of his tail sweeps. And assuming he doesn't try to lie down on top of you." He fought the urge to let loose an absurd laugh; they all looked a bit queasy at his words. "The problem I suppose is that all of our most effective weapons are melee; you'll need to get a vital spot to do a lot of damage." He shrugged. "If you want my recommendation, go for the legs; if you can open up either the femoral or brachial arteries, you'll start slowing him down. Throat's too risky; so's a head shot, and there's no way that a sword or spear is going to be able to reach his heart, let alone do enough damage to drop him permanently."

One of the men coughed. "Um, I'm sorry, but...what the hell is a femoral artery?"

He looked up. "Hmm? Oh, sorry." He raised his leg, placing his foot on a convenient stool. His left hand went to his chest as he gave the impromptu anatomy lesson. "Blood reaches the heart through the vena cava, then goes through the pulmonary artery to the lungs. From there, it goes back to the heart, and then travels up and down through the branches of the aorta." His fingers sketched towards his stomach and continued downward. "It goes through the abdominal aorta, eventually dividing into the two femoral arteries in the inner thighs." He put down his leg. "Between the muscles of the upper arms and upper legs are fairly major arteries; slice those, and you'll get blood. A LOT of blood." He shrugged. "Though considering how much blood Shooting Star must have, it'll probably take a while for the wounds to do enough damage to put him down permanently."

Kashue considered, but the problem was clear. "Two problems with that. First, Shooting Star's legs are going to be quite a bit above our heads; we'd have to be on ledges at just the right height to go for his thighs. Secondly, even if we're high enough, what are the chances that we'll be able to reach the INSIDE of his legs?"

Alex shrugged. "I didn't say it would be easy. And the sad fact of the matter is, you're not going to find ANY better places to attack from the ground."

Ashram snorted. "Then don't attack from the ground. You have the witch; she must know flight spells."

"Sorceress, not witch," Alex and Deedlit corrected in stereo.

Kashue frowned thoughtfully. "That might be our best chance, actually. Keep someone in reserve or hiding with Chiffon, then have her give a boost to someone with a lance." His frown lost its thoughtful quality. "Come to think of it, where is Chiffon?"

Alex looked around. "She must be back in her tent." He hoisted his lance over his shoulder and prepared to leave. "I'll send her in."

Ashram watched him, but there was something bothering him. "You told US to attack his legs. Would you care to tell us how YOU mean to fight?"

Alex paused at the tent flap. Truth be told, he'd been giving this a lot of thought; how DO you kill something that's essentially coated in four-foot-thick armor (scales, hide, fat, and muscle). He had an idea...the only problem was that it would require REALLY good timing, excellent reflexes, and an almost suicidal disregard for your own life to make it work. Which meant that not only could he not let anyone else know about it, he was the only one who could pull it off, if it became necessary.

Still, they had asked, he supposed some sort of answer was in order. He turned, allowing a small grin to cross his lips. "Tell me something. Which side of a dog is the hairiest?" Ignoring the startled look on Ashram's face (and dutifully cataloguing the expression as one he wasn't particularly likely to ever see again), he left in the confusion.

Ashram stared into the now-empty tent entrance, and considered the parting words of one of the only men who'd ever managed to stand against him as an equal, the man who had not once but TWICE out-thought and out-fought him on the field of battle...the one man he truly considered his equal and rival.

"What the hell was that supposed to mean?"

--------

The hooded priest eyed Skurai curiously. He'd heard stories; as he understood it, mothers on Lodoss used him as some sort of night-walking monster, threatening misbehaving children with him; 'you'd better be good; Skurai comes for the blood of naughty boys and girls,' or something of that nature.

There wasn't really all that much known about him though. He'd been around for nearly a hundred and fifty years; he'd been a legend before Beld had ever been born. The only things that were known for sure about him were the simple facts that he had immense skill, near-immortality, an incredibly powerful, ancient, and evil sword...

...and a complete disregard for all life. Oh, and that he was generally regarded to be completely insane.

The priest wondered idly if Kardis hadn't created him as an avatar on the material plane.

Skurai ignored him; he'd been told not to kill him, and frankly, he didn't like to kill priests anyway; they never fought back properly. Priests of Kardis were the worst; they loved death and destruction so utterly that most of them died with smiles on their faces, even as Talatsu boiled the blood in their veins and devoured their broken souls.

Where was the fun in that?

That was one of the reasons he'd accepted this commission...well, suggestion, really. He wasn't being paid; he had no need or desire for money; what was the point when there was nothing you desired to buy, nothing you needed to survive? No, Skurai had no uses for money, or anything as foolish as material wealth. He lived solely for the challenge, for the joy of killing an opponent worth the battle to do so, for the hope of someday fighting the opponent who'd be enough to kill him and take on the Curse of Talatsu in his stead.

He prayed that when he did die, he'd linger long enough to see the look on their face when they realized exactly what they were going to have to bear for the next century or so.

He smiled. One had to have SOMETHING to live for, even if it was only eventual death.

The priest rose from his meditations and approached. He calmly waited to be acknowledged; when Skurai finally looked at him, he simply nodded deeply once; it was close to an obeisance, and it was not lost on the mad slayer, no matter how little he cared. The priest smiled. "The sun will set soon; the Hour of Dying Light. It is an auspicious hour for Kardis; an excellent time to begin your hunt for the dragon."

Skurai snorted disdainfully. "Your goddess means nothing to me."

The priest ignored the slight; in his mind, one venerated Kardis through action, not word or ritual. "Kardis is the goddess of madness, chaos, bloodshed, and destruction; all things that you leave in your wake, all things that will be pleasing to her." He shrugged. "Surely, it is not a BAD hour to shed a great deal of blood, is it not?"

Skurai regarded the priest in silence for a moment before smirking darkly. He stood, letting Talatasu rise from his long shadow. He laughed as he felt the familiar, burning hilt in his hand. "I suppose you're right priest."

--------

Alex didn't frown; he didn't have the energy to spare at the moment for it. Still...

After the near cave-in earlier, he'd volunteered to scout the path ahead. Chiffon had quietly taken a place beside him; he'd been a bit surprised. Deedlit usually scouted with him; for all her power, Chiffon wasn't much a combatant without some distance and a little bit of time to pull a spell together. Deedlit had frowned, and tried to take Chiffon aside, but...he didn't know WHAT had happened, but when they came back, Chiffon had been expressionless and Deedlit had looked...unsettled. He wasn't sure why.

They paused at one of the outcroppings of rock within the tunnels; outcropping might have been a bit too much of a word for it, as it was nothing but a bit upright rock. Still, it was a good enough place to rest while they waited for the rest of the group to catch up, as well as to check for magical traps. He turned to ask Chiffon what she saw –

- And froze at the dull, almost lifeless look in her eyes.

She looked at him calmly; it freaked him out to see the emotionless expression. It reminded him too much of the expression she'd worn in Meiking, the movie he'd seen her in. She'd only gotten that particular expression after a lifetime of abuse culminating in a gang-rape; they'd managed to counter some of the former, and he'd prevented the latter... "Chiffon, is something the matter."

"Cyrus told me everything."

He froze. Imagine if someone had managed to stuff their hands into your innards, and proceeded to drag them down and out through your toenails. It's a fair summation of what Alex felt at the moment.

Chiffon continued relentlessly. "I'd wondered why you seemed less...alive these past few months. You'd always been very vital before the valley; you pushed yourself powerfully. Now...now you're just going through the motions."

Alex was silent for a few moments. He finally answered, "A soul leaking out has that effect, I suppose."

Surprisingly, Chiffon shook her head. "I mean the way you act; Cyrus really told me everything. The truth about where you're from, what you know about us, the shows and series..." she looked at him again, and he wanted to cringe. "He also told me about your plan to die. That's what makes you seem like you're just going through the motions; you're just killing time. You're not really living anymore." She scuffed idly at a rock with her fingers. "I think you really did die in Karla's castle, you just didn't lie down in the end."

He was silent again. She's saying good-bye, he realized. Finally, he asked, "Is that what you told Deed?"

He started as she spun around, tackling him. "DEED?! Why is it always about Deedlit? Why not me?" Biting back a sob, she proceeded to try and beat him with her fists.

He caught her wrists easily, letting her tug helplessly. She didn't bother very long; her heart wasn't in it. He sat up carefully; she didn't resist. She wasn't even crying. It was as though she were too exhausted even for that. "I don't want anyone else to know; I didn't anyway."

"Cyrus said you didn't."

He nodded. He was going to kill Cyrus if the bird showed up; he doubted he'd be too mad in a day or two, but at the moment he was quite willing to kill the damned thing. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you'd be that upset."

She stifled a bitter laugh. "I never stood a chance, did I? It was always her; I was just a charity case."

He gently forced her to look him in the eyes. "When we left the temple, Deedlit decided to come with me; I asked you to come." He gently stroked her hair, wishing he could actually feel its softness. "I doubt I could have made a decision either way. It would have come down to which of you decided I wasn't worth it first, I suppose."

"I wouldn't have let go," she whispered as she pulled closer. "Not for anything. Not for anyone."

He didn't answer. He just let her stay there for a few moments.

She sniffled a bit when she pushed herself away; he was surprised (and a bit worried) at her willingness to end it after so little time; in his experience, getting your emotional equilibrium back took a little bit longer than that. He started, his eyes darkening with alarming speed as he noticed Cyrus perched close by. "Oh, you have balls..."

_They're coming_ the crow spirit replied, unapologetically. _They deserve to know Alex. Sorry._

His fingers clenched around Achiya, but Chiffon managed to sooth him from an angry orangish-amber back to blood red; he was still pissed, but at least now he could retain his reason. She stood, dusting herself off a bit; the indifferent mask was back, and he had a suspicion that it was hurting her more than it hurt him. She fumbled at her neck for a moment; he was startled to see the nine-tailed pendant that he'd let her keep all those months back. She tied it around his neck once more, leaning back to see how it looked against his chain mail. She managed a faint smile. "He was there when you first arrived; he should be there to see you through to the end. His name is Cain."

_Yo._

He picked up the pendant, glaring at it without much heat. "How much of everything that's happened were you responsible for?"

_Directly? Not much. Indirectly? Most of what happened while you were wearing me._

He snorted. _Bloody meddlers, all of them._ Rising, he offered a hand-up to Chiffon. "I'm sorry. I really am."

She nodded, but clearly didn't want to say anything else.

There wasn't much left for him to say, anyway.

--------

The rest of the journey through the caverns went off without much of a hitch. Chiffon had apparently become a good enough actress that no one thought to ask her why she was so subdued (though part of that likely had to do with the fact that no one really knew what to expect from her), and Alex...well, let's not beat a dead horse.

There had been one small hitch, but all it had taken was Ashram literally slicing the man's helmet in half to get him to keep his hands to himself.

No, he didn't try to get fresh with Pirotess; he was foolish, not suicidal.

No, the real problem had been the deepest portions of Shooting Star's lair. For all that the massive beast considered itself above all other forms of smaller life, it had at one point been nothing but an egg, a tiny beast, and even then a relatively small creature; one that could be threatened by the little creatures. As such, it had adhered almost religiously to the instincts of a young dragon in the old days; instincts that were hard to ignore even in its current nigh-invulnerability. Its nest and sleeping chamber had been built in the deepest portions of the volcano as was possible.

While the battle would be fought in the largest, most open portions of the cavernous nest, Shooting Star itself (no one had ever been brave or stupid enough to check for gender) spent little time there. When it wasn't out foraging, it spent most of its time either asleep or just lounging in its hoard.

The hoard that they'd had to walk past to get to the nest.

The problem was that dragons sleep on their hoards for various reasons; draconic instinct in their formative years is somewhat klepto-maniacal. They literally CAN'T resist the urge to go out and round up as much gold, silver, jewels, and other sundry artifacts and pieces of art as they can. They HAVE to acquire enough to make a hoard big enough to sleep in, or at least on.

Which meant walking past a pile of gold and jewels big enough for a four-hundred foot dragon to sleep in.

Temptation is an ugly thing, but come on; they're only human.

Though there had been one small, positive note to their trip through there. Greed at the undoubtedly rich rewards they'd get for killing Shooting Star had managed to instill if not courage, then at least devotion to doing the job.

The only problem was that when they found Shooting Star, he wasn't asleep. And unfortunately, he wasn't alone either.

Skurai grinned darkly as he dodged another brutal swing of the tail. He could have at least TRIED to kill Shooting Star while it slept; truth be told, Talatsu had told him outright to do so.

That was at least part of why Skurai had refused to do so. Mostly he'd done so because he was desperate for a good fight. That, and he realized that if he died, Talatsu would be stuck with a master that it couldn't really coerce or irritate. Not to mention one that couldn't have wielded the sword if it had wanted to; he got such a fiendish thrill out of the thought of the thrice-damned sword moldering away in a dragon's hoard.

Still, he'd make the beast earn it. So he dodged and wove, and directed brutal killing strokes at any part of the dragon that came within range.

He had swiftly discovered that wounding the massive dragon, let alone killing it, would be nearly impossible.

The only real targets he'd managed to deal any damage to were the dragon's tail and feet, and both were so heavily armored by scales that in the end, all he'd managed to do was BARELY draw blood on a few lucky strikes.

He'd tried using the tail itself as a path; he was certain that he could tear up Shooting Star's wings if he got close enough, but the one time he'd actually gotten on the beast's tail, it had nearly turned him to pulp against the cavern's roof.

Though it HAD hit hard enough to drive a stalactite through its tail. Lucky, that.

Another blast of fire, came; yellow-hot, it left the stone under his feet soft enough to leave footprints. He dodged easily, and wondered idly what the priest was doing now.

Kashue watched the battle in shock for a moment. He stared as yet another tall, skinny man with long hair showed up wielding a weapon with skill that was beyond anything he'd ever imagined. The man didn't seem to even notice that he was doing things that should have been patently impossible with a four and a half foot blade three inches wide. He also shouldn't have been able to manage standing sixty-foot broad jumps and twenty-foot vertical leaps.

And he shouldn't have been laughing as he went through brutal attack and defense routines that made Ashram...ASHRAM of all people look like a rank amateur.

"Who the hell is that?"

"...Oh god, not him..."

They turned questioningly to the dark elf. "You know him?" Ashram asked.

She swallowed, pale. It had been nearly fifty years...she hadn't seen him since before the demon had risen on Marmo. "It's...it's Skurai. The Cursed Prosecutor."

A snort was her answer. One of the knights hefted the lance of dragon-slaying that he'd been given. "Oh come on, Skurai? The blood-fiend? He's a legend; a fairytale."

Pirotess simply pointed back to the fight.

Skurai easily leap a sweep of the dragon's tail, sword trailing behind him. Unfortunately, being airborne, he was unable to dodge the return swipe. Instead, he braced Talatsu in both hands and rode the impact, riding the force of the impact all the way into the wall that cratered under his feet. Dropping lightly, almost casually back to one of the ledges surrounding Shooting Star's nest, he cocked the sword to one side. "MAGNUM BREAK!"

A sweep of the sword, and dark magical forces followed, cutting a swath of destruction through the caverns powerful enough to crack the Ancient Dragon's scales. Blood had yet to flow, but for the first time in quite literally over a thousand years, Shooting Star had been wounded.

Pirotess glanced back at the knight. She might have smirked at the slack-jawed expression on his face if it had been anyone else. But Skurai...there were very few things in the world malicious enough to make a Dark Elf squirm, but the man...no, not a man. The...'thing' they faced now was something darker and more primeval than a demon.

Ashram growled darkly as he unsheathed Soul Crusher, feeling the spirit within shudder in resonance between Talatsu and the Demon Dragon.

Skurai froze, eyes widening as a familiar energy washed through the cavern.

Shooting Star roared in challenge as it sensed the swarm of insects, insects armed with magical stings. They would die first; then Skurai.

Alex's eyes widened as he watched the tell-tale bulge of throat and cheek. "SCATTER!" Suiting words to actions, he shoved Deedlit ahead, grabbing Chiffon as he dove out of the way of the dragon's fire.

Ashram snarled as he slashed at the dragon's breath, Soul Crusher's protective magic battering into the inferno and cutting a swath wide enough to shield all those left on the ledge. Skurai watched interestedly as the fire died; the rock under their feet was likely scorching to touch and nearly mud-soft from the heat, and yet not one of them backed down.

He hoped they'd live long enough for him to kill.

"Now is our chance."

Skurai turned. "I'd wondered where you had gone off to."

The priest bowed. "You can survive a battle with Shooting Star; I cannot." Facing Skurai, he gestured deeper. "For now, the beast is distracted. Will you help me secure the Scepter?"

Skurai laughed in his face. "I came here to battle the dragon."

"And will the dragon no longer be here when you return?" the Priest asked reasonably. "The others...they are strong, but do you really think they can bring down this beast and leave in the scant minutes it would take you to secure the scepter?"

"I came to slay the dragon."

A rusty chuckle preceded a voice that sounded like jagged blades grating against each other. "No, help the priest Skurai. We came here for the blood, but we also came here to curse Lodoss. Putting the Scepter in the hands of Kardis's priesthood will do that nicely."

Skurai gazed at the mouth adorning Talatsu's pommel for a moment. He knew that he would have to provide the accursed thing with blood, but he had no need to obey the damned thing further than he had to. Still, the priest amused him, and he was right about one thing; Shooting Star would be there for him to murder shortly.

He laughed again. "Lead the way, but make this quick. We've had no blood for too long; it wouldn't do to quench our thirst on you."

--------

Ashram panted for a few moments as he watched the rest of his fellow 'dragon-slayers' scatter to the ledges. Truth be told, he was surprised at how much it had taken out of him to parry the dragon's fire; he doubted that he'd be able to manage too many more of those before the fight was over. He waved aside Pirotess's hands as he used Soul Crusher to push himself to his feet; he could feel her singing in his grasp, and she was all he would ever need to do battle...

He shook his head violently; the sword was getting more than a little presumptuous. Turning back to the Dark Elf, he nodded towards the dragon. "I'm not going to be able to be of much use this far away. Find a way to get me on the beast's back."

She stared at him for a moment, but nodded in the end. Vanishing in a floating leap, she began scaling the walls of the cavern in hopes of finding a good anchor point.

Deedlit's head peeked around a stalagmite as she tried to find a good point to launch some sort of attack. Her magic was largely defensive in nature, or used in divination; she could do a fair bit with Sylph or Undine, but that was almost the extent of what she could contribute to this fight. Her rapier wouldn't stand any chance against those scales, and she doubted that even a point-blank shot from her light horsebow in the dragon's eye would do more than draw unwanted notice.

Sighing in defeat, she turned back to Alex and Chiffon. "I told you this was a bad idea."

Alex shrugged off his robe, revealing a chain mail vest and leather leg armor. "Maybe. Any suggestions?"

Chiffon rose out of her crouch to look at Shooting Star; four hundred feet from nose to tail, and nearly eight thousand tons of flesh and bone. Somehow she doubted that the fire spells she preferred would be of any great use against a creature that chose to live in an active volcano. Though truth be told, she doubted that ANY of her attack magic could make an appreciable dent in the behemoth. "I know some protection spells, some anti-fire spells too. I don't think my magic's going to do any good directly against that."

Alex nodded as he left Achiya behind. He REALLY didn't want to do this, but he doubted he had a choice; he just couldn't see what were essentially magical toothpicks to Shooting Star killing him. For the target he had in mind, the lance would just get in the way; he slung his three-foot chopper back onto his back, and slipped the hafts of a pair of war picks into his belt. Thirty inches in haft, the foot-long heads were sharp, doubled-edged, and curved noticeably downward into a particularly brutal point; they'd been designed to tear through plate armor.

He had a slightly different use in mind for them.

Securing a loop of rope around his arm, he took Achiya back into his hands; for now at least, the lance was fine. "Do either of you know any kind of flight spells?"

Deedlit frowned. "I'm afraid not; elves don't have much interest in flight, and besides, we can rely on our leaps for the most part."

Chiffon shook her head. "I've always relied on a horse; after that flight we took on Jester's wyverns, I've never really wanted to fly again."

Alex suppressed a chuckle; he didn't remember the flight, but according to Woodchuck, just about everyone who'd been conscious for that flight had been sick and miserable. Then he had to suppress the sorrow; that had been the flight to Tarba.

Ignoring it for the time being, he looked around. He couldn't see Ashram, but he could hear him. More importantly, he could see the violet flashes that he knew meant the black knight was trying to blast something into meat paste. Looking around, he checked for Shadam and Kashue; he wanted the knights to survive, but those two were his friends. Grimacing, he spent some soul-time to sharpen his eyesight; he finally noticed the heads of their lances in some of the rock as they tried to find a good way to get onto Shooting Star's body.

Shaking his head, he turned back to the elves. "Chiffon, cast one spell of fire protection on me, and one spell of more general protection. Then you and Deed go over there (he gestured towards the rocks across the cavern) and cast the same spells on Kashue and Shadam. After that, track down any of the other knights you can find and do it again. Got it?"

"What will you be doing?" Chiffon asked.

"Finding my opening," he replied. Chiffon stared at him blankly; he wanted to curse. "It's not over yet, Chiffon; I'm NOT going to die here."

The half-elf nodded a half-second later. Rising to her feet, she closed her eyes, and began chanting softly under her breath as she placed her hands on either side of him. He winced slightly as he felt the magic take hold; he didn't know why, but ever since Karla, he'd noticed that magic had an unpleasant tendency to fail around him at inopportune moments. He could feel the spell take hold; that at least he didn't have to worry about. He just hoped it would last long enough.

Rising to his feet he watched as the two scurried through the scrub. Taking a deep breath, he tried to mentally prepare himself for what was to come.

It wasn't every day you had to leap into the lion's den.

"Lovely girls."

He spun, Achiya snapping towards the voice.

Skurai's eyebrows rose as he parried the thrust. "Excellent reflexes. A normal man would probably be dead by now." He smirked. "No one on Lodoss would call me normal though."

Alex met those mad eyes and let his own darken. "Why do this? Why help Wagnard?"

Skurai looked surprised. "Oh, you know about all that?" He shrugged, sighing happily. "I live only to kill, Coyote. To give blood to Talatsu, hoping every time that it will be the blood that can satisfy him, the blood to break my curse of immortality." He grinned. "Perhaps dragon's blood is what I needed all along. Why do this you ask? Why not?"

"So you don't give a fuck," Alex replied as he withdrew Achiya. "Where's the scepter?"

"Ask the priest, if you can find him; he ran off the moment he got it into his fingers."

Alex growled as he looked up. "I don't have time for this; go kill him yourself."

He never saw Skurai move. All he knew was that a moment later, blood marred his vision. Spinning, his eyes widened at the sight of Talatsu resting an inch from his eye...his blood marring the tip.

Skurai smirked. "I need blood. Perhaps a dragon's; why not a hero's?" His eyes widened as Achiya's cross-prongs tore open his cheek; if he hadn't dodged, he would have been stabbed through the mouth.

"DON'T. Call me a hero." Alex's next words were drowned by Shooting Star's furious roar; apparently, it had only just noticed that the scepter had been taken. Alex leapt back as he felt more than heard the rocks trembling; a small avalanche fell between him and Skurai; torn from the rocks by flailing dragon's claws. He was still angry, but he knew that he had to deal with the dragon and the scepter first; Skurai would keep, or he would be dead, and either way, it wouldn't be his problem. Dropping Achiya, he leapt for the rocks, and began scaling as high as he could.

Skurai frowned as he watched Alex climb. It wasn't just hat he'd been struck, though that was unusual. No, what concerned him now was Alex's blood, and the peculiarities that Talatsu had tasted.

It passed quickly enough. Leaping back up, he braced against a wall, and with a furious push launched himself towards Shooting Star; precisely which blood he got didn't matter.

He wondered if maybe he needed elf blood; Wagnard seemed to put some stock by it, maybe he should as well.

Pirotess sighed tiredly as she finished attaching the rope to the stalactite. She doubted that Ashram had wanted to climb (she didn't even know if he COULD climb a rope properly in his armor), but this was the best she could do. There certainly wasn't any chance that she could CARRY him onto Shooting Star's back.

She frowned as she noticed the rope going a bit slack...no, just changing. Following the rope with her eyes, she growled in exasperation as she noticed one of the idiot humans was climbing the walls, the end of the rope tied to his waist...wait, not just any idiot human. Only Alex wore his hair in that shaggy mess, though why he didn't have his spear...

Leaping carefully, she managed a long, floating jump down to the wall, easily absorbing the impact. "Put that rope down, that's for Ashram, not you."

He ignored her.

Seething, she drew a dagger. If he thought he could ignore her...

His war pick slammed into the rock behind her neck.

She froze; he could have very easily torn her head off with that blow had he chosen to, and she never saw it coming.

He glared at her as he pulled himself up, using the war pick to provide a handhold. "Move. I have a job to do; go do yours."

She stared at him incredulously as he freed the pick and dug into a new hold. "Ashram needs to get on its back to do serious damage; Soul Crusher can pierce Shooting Star's scales. Those things can't. You need HIM to kill Shooting Star."

"We'll find out," he said as he continued climbing, not bothering to look at the dark elf clinging to the rock face. "I'm not going to cut the rope or anything; it'll be ready for him to use by the time he gets here. Assuming you decide to fetch him instead of arguing with me."

She flushed angrily, but decided duty was more important than a pointless fight now; she could kill him after Shooting Star was dead.

Alex watched her go, and looked down. He was attached to a granite and obsidian rock face nearly three hundred feet above the ground. He was armed with a large, heavy sword and two war picks (which were the only things keeping him attached to said rock face). He was also attached to a length of rope that had been tied to the roof, almost two hundred feet higher than him.

And he was about to jump.

For the record, no, he'd never wanted to go bungee jumping.

Alex was a brave man, normally. He might not admit it, he might not think it, but he was brave; he'd faced hell and been able to keep from blinking. Still, he didn't want to do this. He REALLY didn't want to do this.

So he paused, and he looked, focusing soul-time into his eyes, scanning Shooting Star for injuries, trying to see if he actually had to go through with it.

...Well, they were doing better than they had in the Canon, that was for sure. Shooting Star was actually bleeding quite a bit on the snout, limbs, and tails. Kashue and Shadam had managed to get high enough to put their lances to use, as had the knight selected to carry the third lance. Shadam had lost his; it was still buried in Shooting Star's leg. Kashue was actually clinging to Shooting Star's hide, using the lance still buried in its flesh as a hand hold. Ashram had broken off his assault on Shooting Star's head (it kept trying to eat him) and was dodging slashes, returning them in interest as he headed for where the end of the rope would be. Skurai had managed to work his way onto Shooting Star's back briefly, and left several deep gashes along the spine.

They were nowhere closer to killing it. And it was only a matter of time before Shooting Star lost its temper and decided to just immolate the whole damned cavern.

Swallowing, Alex turned into position; back to the cliff face, legs folded tightly, feet braced against the wall, the hafts of war picks in either hand...

He took a deep breath...

And shoved off from the wall with all his strength.

Gravity eventually overtook his forward momentum, then the tension in the rope offset gravity; he swung, faster and faster towards Shooting Star. Luck was with him; he'd gauged the necessary length of the rope properly, and he was swinging true, not spinning as he went.

He fumbled at the rope with hands and feet in turn as he swung; he needed to hold on, but he couldn't be tied, and he couldn't just slash the rope, or Ashram would never be able to reach it. Granted, Ashram's involvement would be a moot point if this worked, but he believed in contingencies. Besides, he'd given his word to Pirotess.

He bottomed out on the swing; he was at top speed, and beginning the upward half of the swing now. He prayed this worked as he intended. He prayed that his brilliant, insane, inspired, desperate plan worked. He prayed that Shooting Star cooperated with his needs.

Mostly, he prayed that the last part of the plan succeeded, and that he walked out of this alive.

He began to howl.

Shooting Star, angry as it was, primeval as it was, still remained alert. It swung its head up at the howl, and nearly gave the draconic equivalent of a laugh. A gnat had decided to charge him. Smirking diabolically, it whipped its head towards the speeding, falling figure, and opened its mouth.

Alex sailed straight into Shooting Star's waiting jaws.

Those jaws snapped shut.

And that was the end of it.

Deedlit stared. There was nothing else she could think to do. She started as she felt Chiffon's hand on hers. Turning, she started again at the peaceful look on Chiffon's face.

The half elf simply turned and looked up towards Shooting Star. "He said he wouldn't die here."

--------

As Wort led them deeper into his tower, Leylia turned to Slayn. Leaning as close as she dared, she whispered, "you met Wort once before, didn't you?"

Slayn nodded almost imperceptibly; Wort's back was to them, but who knew what sort of listening and spying spells the old archmage would have lying around his tower.

"Was he this...well...crotchety the last time you two met?"

Slayn nearly tripped.

Wort smirked where they couldn't see him. He didn't actually have that many spying wards around his tower; most of what he worried about was defeating OTHER wizards' attempts to spy on him. Still, most people forgot that he hadn't always been a sage; he'd gotten his start as a mercenary spy and artillery piece. He hadn't forgotten all of the tricks of the trade; listening on what others didn't want heard was among the easiest spells he knew.

Still, no reason to let them know that, was there?

He let Slayn try to explain WHY they were 'wasting their time' with some crotchety, possibly senile old mage as he led them to his laboratory. He had a lot to tell them (whether they were interested or not), and he had a feeling that some of his magical apparatuses would be necessary.

It didn't take long to arrive. He waved a hand at a few of his less comfortable chairs; not UNcomfortable, just...not as nice as his chair. Anyway, a wave of his hand had them scooting over the floor; he gestured peremptorily for them to sit as he suited his own actions to his suggestion. "So," he asked as he squirmed himself comfortable into his chair, "why are you here?"

Slayn took a deep breath as he tried to compose his thoughts.

Leylia chose to be slightly blunt. "Why are all the mages of Lodoss so uncomfortable?"

Slayn stared at her for a moment, then turned to stare at Wort. If anything, the oh-so-amused expression on his face was worse than anger. Particularly as it asked in not so many words 'why the hell do you need me to tell you?' He decided to elaborate. "We've...well, I," he added at the look Leylia gave him, "have been noticing over the past several months that there has been something...well, agitating the magic-users of Lodoss. Ever since I left Zaxom, to be honest, but at the time I just put it down to the threat of war, or Karla mucking things up. It was only after the war, when things should have been getting calmer that I noticed that things were in fact getting worse."

"Why ask me?" Wort asked; his tone wasn't rhetorical though. "Surely Neese could have told you as much as I could."

Slayn winced. "That's just it; it's not ALL the magic-users of Lodoss, it's just people like you and me. I managed to coax an elf to talk to me, and apparently shamans don't seem to be having too much trouble, and neither do the priests. It's only the sorcerers, the witches, and wizards; those who learn themselves that seem to be affected."

Wort nodded, but chose not to speak. When Slayn and Leylia both remained silent, he mentally shook his head. As the silence began to stretch uncomfortably, he audibly sighed, crooking a finger at one of the books on his shelves. "Slayn, you really ought to be ashamed of yourself. You haven't figured it out already?"

THAT wasn't what he'd expected to hear.

Wort lifted the now-floating book out of the air, and opened it for Slayn. "Slayn my boy, take a look at that, and tell me what you see. What does this tell you?"

Frowning in thought, Slayn accepted the book, and looked over it critically. It wasn't a magic book; surprisingly, it was nothing but an old farmer's almanac. Still, he kept looking; Wort wouldn't have him look if there was nothing to see. He didn't notice any religious festivals or holidays, but farmers didn't often have to mark those out. He checked the seasons, the time and position of the rising sun...he considered the constellations for a moment, but couldn't think of anything in particular...

Wait a minute...time and position of the sun...what about the moon...

Wort smiled grimly at the suddenly pallor on Slayn's face. "In the sixth month of this year, the full moon will rise on the second night. It will then rise again, exactly twenty eight days hence, one week after the summer solstice. And at midnight of that night..."

"A Blue Moon," Slayn whispered hoarsely. The last time one had risen had been thousands of years ago, but every hedge witch, let alone serious sorcerer was told the legends. Because when the Blue Moon rose...

"Wild Magic," Slayn whispered.

Wort simply watched, smiling grimly. A night of wild magic; gods alone knew what would happen to any spellcasters foolish enough to try and wield their art on that night. Surges of Wild Magic could reshape continents; it was said that not even gods could truly control or even resist the wild magic. On Lodoss, the continent birthed in a sea of mad, divine blood...

Wort idly wondered if it might be better to die in his sleep before he had to see that particular night.

Slayn shook his head suddenly. "No, that's not it. If it was just the wild magic, it would have affected every single spell-caster on Lodoss, regardless of the source, not just the arcanists." He looked up, his eyes narrowing suddenly. "There's something else, isn't there Wort? Just like with Karla, there's something you don't want us to know."

Wort eased himself out of his chair; he was almost amused at the sudden wariness in both of their expressions. He'd learned long ago that one of the most effective tools for making people listen to you more closely was to be casual; he'd need that now. He chose to casually study his collection of extra-dimensional storybooks. "Magic is simply potential energy. There's energy everywhere; it flows through all things, it makes everything work the way it does. The energy that we term magic is no different from the force that makes us walk about, the power of sunlight, the flowing water...it's just energy. Magic is just the word we use to describe the art that wields it."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Leylia demanded.

Wort ignored her outburst. "Magic as you and I understand it Slayn, is merely a part of the design of the gods. Long ago, the first sorcerers and scholars discovered the Godsweave. It was the divine plan by which all of nature acted; it determined the nature of our existence. Day and night, the flow of the seasons, life, death, birth...all determined by the Godsweave. They tried to change it to suit them, and the gods Smote them for their audacity. Thus, the first successful sorcerers, those of Kastuul, were the ones who were able to go about it with some subtlety. They crimped the weave enough that, with the right words and the right gestures, they could implement small changes; make a fire show up where it shouldn't, make rocks crumble where they should have stood for ages...all sorts of things. And thus we wizards today scrabble after the leavings of Kastuul and the old magic, because we've all but forgotten how to slip things into the Weave."

"What – "

"Priestess, be silent." The conversational tone seemed to shock them both into silence; good. "ALL magic is bound by the Godsweave; shamans merely prod spirits to follow out what they can do within the confines of the weave, and the only difference is that the spirits might not have done it at the time when they did. Clerics and priests ask the gods to do it for them; through communion and prayer, they grow close enough to those who can affect the weave more drastically than they can. Wizards though...we're still trying to be gods ourselves, and make the weave our own, whether we realize it or not. We search for the pure knowledge, for the key to magic, the warp and woof of the Weave. And because of that, we are far more sensitive to the weave, because for us, the input we gain from it is not filtered through the speech of fairies or the interpretation of gods; we feel it PRECISELY as it is." He smiled at Leylia. "Of course, we don't always know what it means; that's the price we pay for our freedom; ignorance. But we always get the WHOLE story."

Slayn frowned. "So what you're saying is that there's something else, something more monumental than a night of wild magic that's affecting this 'Weave,' and that the gods and spirits are trying to keep it some sort of secret?"

Wort sighed. "Regretfully, no. It's not that they're trying to hide it, it's just that they're...well, limited in what they can do about it." He sat again. "The root of the problem is this. EVERYTHING in Lodoss, as well as all of Forceria, is linked to the Weave. Even Fate itself, if you should go so far as to say it. We've had nigh unto an eternity to get used to it; the gods have left the Weave largely alone for eons, which is why our rather 'unnatural' magics still exist and work. Everything was in a nice, complacent rut.

"And then someone dumped something into Lodoss that wasn't a part of the weave, something that could interact with it, but wasn't bound by it. Something that could do the most asinine, insane, unthinkable things that we dare not even IMAGINE, and get away with it because the Weave wasn't there to stop it."

Leylia's eyes widened. "What...what in Marfa's name..."

"Alex."

If Slayn was pale before...if Leylia's eyes had been wide before...

Wort sighed. "It's not the first time that world-walkers, even unknowing ones like Alex have shown up on Lodoss; I've met quite a few. But most of them just chose to quietly fade into the background, or go back home when the opportunity presented itself. This one though...this one had to get mixed up in the thick of things."

Slayn shook his head wonderingly. "I knew he was odd, but...he's not even of this world?"

Wort nodded. "He started out a human being, same as you and me, but where he'll go on this world, and where you and I are going...well, that's another story altogether."

Leylia frowned. "Wait a minute, Alex can't affect the Weave, can he?"

Wort looked up, startled. "He can be affected by it; magic works on him, it just doesn't work quite the same as it does to us."

Leylia shook her head. "No, can he...can he manipulate the Weave? Like a wizard or..." she swallowed. "...like a God?"

Wort stared at her.

And flung his head back and laughed.

Leylia and Slayn stared at the howling mage, before turning helplessly to each other. Slayn looked at her incredulously, mouthing 'a god,' at her. Leylia had the grace to flush in embarrassment; it had just sort of slipped out.

Wort finally got his laugher under control (following a coughing fit). "A god? Oh child, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I haven't laughed like that in years." Shaking his head and still chuckling, he explained. "No, he can't affect the weave, but he's not affected by it the same way that you and I are; it depends on how much he fights it. That novice friend of yours had to heal him quite a bit; I imagine he welcomed that when it occurred. That would work perfectly because he wanted it to work perfectly. Defense spells would probably work well enough, so long as he knew what they did and how; if he wanted them to do one thing that they couldn't, they'd likely start to unravel. Attack spells though...unless he was feeling suicidal, I doubt that they'd work on him properly at all. Oh, they'd hurt, and likely do some serious damage, but not they way they were intended."

Leylia turned sheet white.

Slayn never noticed. "I still don't understand; this makes Alex...well, unique, I suppose, but how does that affect all the mages on Lodoss?"

Wort shrugged as he leaned back into his chair. "Probably all the mages on Forceria, to some degree or another, though they'll just chalk it up to the Blue Moon, same as you. The problem, you see, isn't the Blue Moon, though that's part of it, and it's not really Alex, though he's a part of it." He sighed. "The problem is when the two of them mix. Because you see, the Wild Magic is just that; Wild. It's untamed energy, and it's NOT part of the Weave; if anything, it's something too great to be a part of the Weave. So tell me Slayn, what happens when power that the gods can't control meets someone who the gods can't predict?"

Slayn's eyes widened. Wort nodded. "It's likely nothing; the Wild Magic is no more likely to obey him than anything else; the only difference is that the weave won't be able to try and keep him out of the thick of it. It might not be that bad, but what you and I have been sensing, along with the rest, is the POTENTIAL of what might happen. It's like knowing a storm is coming, and not being able to do anything about it; you have to weather it out, and hope it doesn't kill you in the process. Priests and the like have someone to at least assure them that it'll be alright, but you and me?" He shrugged. "Of course you're going to be nervous." He frowned suddenly. "Child, what in the name of Mycen has got you so afraid?"

"...Soul Reaver..."

Slayn had never imagined that the shrunken, wizened old archmage could move that fast. All he knew was that when those words left her mouth, he shot out of his chair and seized her by the robe.

"Child, you are going to tell me right now where you heard that."

Leylia stared at Wort.

And told them.

Everything.

Slayn stared at her. "Alex is dying?" He might not have always LIKED the crazy little lancer, but...they were friends still. There was a difference between not always liking someone and not caring that their soul was getting ripped apart. His eyes widened. "God's above, he went after SHOOTING STAR in that condition?!"

Wort paled. "Shooting Star? He's awake?" Seeing Slayn's grim nod, he collapsed into his chair. "God's above is right, Slayn." He turned to regard the mage. "Alex told me quite a bit about Shooting Star, and what it would mean when he woke up."

He shook his head. "We're all doomed."

Slayn and Leylia stared, uncomprehending, still caught up in the drama of Alex's imminent demise.

Wort did not wait long to enlighten them.

--------

Some secrets are never meant to be kept forever.

--------

If not for the fact that he would likely have started drowning in rancid saliva, Alex would have said, "This has got to be the dumbest fucking idea I've EVER had."

But between the fact that he was trying to wrestle his way past a slippery tongue that out-weighed him by several metric tons, one capable of crushing an ogre into jelly, and the afore-mentioned rancid saliva, Alex settled for thinking dire things.

He'd actually PLANNED on this happening. What kind of dumb-shit PLANS on wrestling around inside the mouth of the biggest carnivore the world had ever imagined?

And what kind of dumb-shit goes DEEPER?

He'd sheathed his war-picks early on; he was going to need them later, and they were too unwieldy in the dense, muggy environment he was currently trapped in. He'd instead drawn a pair of heavy-duty stilettos, and was using them to drag himself forward.

He'd wondered at first if Shooting Star would feel it, but the way he saw it, that would have been the equivalent of noting the rasp of individual grains of salt on your food. On a human scale, anyway. As it was, he was just thankful that he hadn't run into any unpleasant surprises in the form of a draconic immune system or digestive enzymes.

At least not yet; he might have been a pessimist, but he was realistic.

It took less than half a minute to drag himself past Shooting Star's tongue, but it was a miserable minute. Even as nerve-dead as he'd become, he STILL felt the phantom-slimy sensation of wading through spit. Grabbing hold of one of the dragon's rearmost teeth, he studied the network of tubes leading downward.

He was pretty sure there should only have been two; the esophagus, and the trachea. Which led him to wonder why there was a third one, as well as several branching clusters that, as near as he could tell, connected to either the esophagus or windpipe.

Shooting Star's mouth opened suddenly; there was a rush of air as it sucked in breath. Cursing, Alex slid towards the back of the mouth, one stiletto disappearing into the depths of Shooting Star's digestive tract, the other one frantically stabbing into the slippery muscle.

What actually saved him was a thick, horny plate of flesh and what looked like scale, descending on top of him as he slid. He involuntarily 'whuff'ed when it hit; it was more than powerful enough to drive the air out of his lungs.

All of that become unimportant as suddenly, the plate of muscle went hot.

He gasped again as he felt a rumble shoot through everything around him. It only lasted a few seconds, but it nearly deafened him. He groaned as the plate lifted; looking around, he was amazed that none of the dragon's mouth was showing signs of damage from what he KNEW had been a blast of dragon fire. Shaking his head to try and get rid of the spots dancing before his eyes, he looked around again. Painful as hell, that fire-breath had ended up lucky for him; he at least knew what was what now.

The back-most tube was apparently the power-source for Shooting Star's fire breath; presumably, those little tubes branching from the front-most tube were linked to the trachea to provide extra oxygen to the fire. More oxygen meant hotter flame, regardless of the source.

Grimacing in distaste at what he had to do now, he sheathed his stiletto, and withdrew his picks. Checking quickly, he made sure that he had everything he needed; two war picks, two daggers, a 30-foot length of rope, and his chopper.

Swallowing, he forced himself to relax, and dove down Shooting Star's esophagus.

He regretted it instantly; mucus lined the walls of the dragon's gullet nearly a foot thick; it wouldn't stop him, sure, but...well, come on. YOU want to go spelunking through barrels of dragon snot?

I thought not.

Forcing away his disgust, he decided against waiting in his descent, slashing first one then another war pick into the sides of the gullet. The mucus blunted his blows a bit, but less than thirty feet into his fall he managed to hook the pick's curved blade into the flesh of Shooting Star's throat. He nearly lost it as he felt a coughing rumble-wriggle course through the neck; apparently, he wasn't THAT nerve-dead. Ignoring it, he waited a bit, and aiming carefully, hooked his other pick into the dragon's throat at arm's length. Another rumble, and he started the dirtiest job.

Securing himself to his picks with the rope, he drew his chopper and stabbed into the throat lining, on what he assumed was the left side of the neck. He ignored the rumbles as best he could; they were still distracting Shooting Star out there, as best as he could tell. It took a while but he managed to hack a four-foot slit into the walls of the esophagus. Taking one last deep breath and playing out the rope secured to his picks, he plunged through the mucus and flesh, deeper into Shooting Star's neck.

He nearly vomited doing it.

His first sensation on passing through was of HEAT. Clearing the gunk out of his eyes, he felt more than saw the great blood vessel pulsing in Shooting Star's neck; the heat coming off of it was amazing. Drawing his toothed daggers, he cut and dragged his way up the length of the blood vessel. Shooting Star shook; did it realize what was to come, or did it merely react to the pain in the neck? Truth be told, it probably didn't matter.

This was it.

Drawing his chopper, he reversed his grip and turned it until the hooked, sharpened back edge of the blade lay towards him. Taking a deep breath, he forced as much soul-time into his body as he could spare, and stabbed.

The first pulse of blood nearly blasted him back into the trachea; if not for the sudden panicked shaking of Shooting Star, it would have. Desperately shaking the blood out of his eyes, Alex forced himself to grab the haft of the blade once more, and heaved himself downwards, dragging the blade after him, cutting deeper and wider. He noticed dimly the spurting; he'd managed to get the carotid artery. Still, he'd said it in Kashue's tent; Shooting Star's sheer mass meant that it would take either a LONG time or a BIG wound to get him to bleed to death, and he couldn't afford any more time.

So he hacked and dragged and twisted; he lost his footing twice from Shooting Star's desperate struggles, but he'd chosen his target with this in mind; this was the one place where Shooting Star couldn't defend itself.

Eventually, he noticed the blood pressure dropping; the spurts were coming more infrequently.

He also noticed that judging from the momentum, Shooting Star was falling.

He grimaced as he tried to haul himself into something that would cushion his fall somewhat.

Of course, even if he survived that, he had to figure out how he was going to get back out.

--------

The thunderous rumble of the massive body collapsing to the stone still echoed in the cavern.

And somehow, despite that rumble, there was a deafening silence in the air.

Kashue stared in awe at the dead dragon; somehow, it seemed larger dead than it had alive, as though its mass had been underscored by its sheer vitality. He nursed a broken arm and more cuts and bruises than he'd had in months; he'd been in better shape after the Valley. Shadam hadn't quite dodged one of Shooting Star's last fire breaths fast enough; he was badly burned, though he'd likely live. Once they got him to a priest...

Ashram stared. Not in awe; he'd grown up in the presence of Narse. He respected the dragon, but it wasn't quite as...novel to him as this great red beast likely was to the desert warriors. No, he stared because he simply couldn't believe that the thing was dead, and that somehow, his rival, his SHOULD BE DIGESTED rival had killed it.

It was the only possible answer; there were almost no wounds on Shooting Star's body at all. Even the legendary Talatsu, even mighty 'dragon-slaying lances of Myrii...' and yes, even Soul Crusher itself had proven largely ineffectual against Shooting Star's armor and magic.

HOW. HAD. HE. DONE IT?!

"The outside."

The knight started, spinning. He cursed himself for it; he'd recognized the voice, and if anything, that had contributed to his surprise.

Chiffon looked at him unconcernedly, stroking a crow of all things. "What?"

Chiffon watched the hulking corpse raptly; Cyrus said he and Alex were linked, and that he could tell Alex wasn't dead...yet. That was enough for her, and if not quite enough for Deed, enough to give her some hope. "Deed told me about the meeting in the tent; Alex asked you, 'Which side of a dog is the hairiest?'" She looked at Shooting Star. "It's a child's riddle. The answer is the **out**side."

Ashram glared at her. "What does a child's riddle have to –"

Deed's cry stopped everything.

They watched raptly as something seemed to twitch at Shooting Star's snout; it looked as though the dead dragon was, absurdly enough, going to sneeze. Rather than a sneeze, the hooked end of a war pick came out, grasping the edge of the nostril. Another blood-stained pick followed it on the other side, pulling a tall, lanky, grunting figure dressed in chain mail and leather.

He was completely stained red. Red as Shooting Star itself.

Skurai, observing from a small, secluded outcropping, felt an inexplicable pang of jealousy at the sight, though from Talatsu rather than his own feelings.

Kashue stared, using his lance as a cane to help him towards where Deedlit and Chiffon were helping Alex off the carcass, unmindful of the blood rubbing off on them. "You...you killed it." He swallowed at the dull, crimson gaze meeting his eyes. He shook it off, but still... "How do you feel?"

Alex paused. The rag Chiffon had given him to clean himself with was long since drenched in blood; he dropped it. At least his face was clean. Straightening a bit, he stared at Kashue. "How do I feel?" he asked conversationally. "I was swallowed by a dragon, wrestled with its tongue, waded through a river of draconic spit and snot, swam BACK through its own super-heated blood, and dragged myself out through his nostrils, after carving my way through what looked like a four-hundred-year back-log of old sneezes." The stare became a glare (though a normal one). "How the FUCK do you think I feel?"

Any answer that might have been forthcoming was derailed as Deedlit promptly knocked Alex off the dragon's snout.

He couldn't quite manage a somersault, but he did manage to get his feet more or less under him before he fell on his ass. Turning back, he glared at the elf. "What the hell was that for?"

Deedlit calmly picked up one of his dropped war picks and floated down to him...and smacked him in the head with the haft. "That would have been much more convincing, if you hadn't PLANNED THE WHOLE THING!" She tried smacking him again, but proving that he was NOT an anime protagonist, he learned from his mistake and chose not to let the female lead beat on him.

Or you could just say that he grabbed the haft before it could connect. It's much the same thing.

Deedlit just kept glaring. "'Which side of a dog is the hairiest?' You couldn't have been just a LITTLE bit clearer about what you were planning?"

Soul Crusher slammed into the blade of the war pick still between them. Ashram didn't glare. This was BEYOND glaring, he was currently radiating killing intent dwarfing anything he'd managed against Shooting Star. Ignoring the sudden nervous looks, ignoring the lances and swords now pointing at him, he turned to stare impassively at Alex. "Would someone," he bit out, "PLEASE explain to me what that insipid riddle means?"

Alex batted the sword out of the way with his pick; Ashram was more interested in getting everyone's attention than doing any damage, and the sword returned to its sheath simply enough. Rising to his feet and shucking his bloody armor, Alex explained. "It's a stupid joke; which side of a dog is the hairiest? The outside." Grimacing at the bloody armor, he tossed it aside; he doubted they'd be able to clean it before it started rusting, and he KNEW he'd never be able to wear it again without remembering dragon snot. "By the same token, the side of a dog which is bald is the inside. Applying the same logic to a dragon; which side of a dragon is covered in nigh-unbreakable scales? And which is completely unprotected?" He managed a grin at the incredulous look on Ashram's face; it was obvious when you thought about it. It was also completely ridiculous; no one would ever be stupid enough to do it. "It's the same as any other martial tactic; find out where your opponent is unprotected, position yourself as necessary, and hit him with the biggest blow you can manage." He shrugged. "Thankfully, Shooting Star is...or was, the same as most other dragons. No acid spit or anything like that; he wasn't just unprotected, he was also incapable of defending himself there. It was simply the only way to get in a decisive strike."

Slow clapping met his explanation. It was odd; they knew that Skurai was there, they knew he was a raging homicidal maniac, and yet they still chose not to act as though he was a threat. Post-battle shock, most likely.

He bowed mockingly. "Well done, Coyote. Stupid, crazy, and ruthless; I commend your instincts." He laughed. "I never would have imagined such lively action from a dead man."

One of Kashue's surviving knights' eyes widened; he never would have imagined such a blatant challenge. Yanking out his sword, he set himself...and noticed that no one else was doing anything.

Skurai laughed at him. "Oh, don't worry yourself. I don't fight the dead, and dead blood is worthless to Talatsu."

Now confusion. Alex was too keyed up; still flush with the after-battle rush, he had enough feeling to tense up. Chiffon was completely blank. Pirotess frowned; Ashram's eyes narrowed. He'd had quite enough with enigmatic prompts and such; he'd gotten a lifetime's worth from Karla. Kashue looked on in confusion, Shadam frowned, and Deed...

"What are you talking about?"

Skurai's normally blank eyes widened...then narrowed into a smirk. "Oh, you don't know, do you? None of you do." He shook his head at Alex. "But you know. And Talatsu knows. So Skurai knows too." He grinned; why not? "Talatsu gains his power from blood; he tastes blood, and he takes of that blood all the powers that it held. All of the techniques, spells, and abilities of the source of that blood, he gains. And he also gets all SORTS of little extras; he knows blood lines, family...he can tell me quite a bit from the taste of blood. And your blood tastes dead; I've cut down vampires and zombies with more life in their blood than you have." He smiled as he let Talatsu sink into his shadow; he didn't want a fight at the moment; he'd wait until they were in good enough shape to make it interesting. "'Like a three-month-dead corpse,' he says. That's the taste of your blood." Appropriately enough, considering his topic, it was blood that erupted out of his shadow, swirling about him as the blood magic swept him out of the cavern.

Alex swallowed; he couldn't afford to let the Flowing Soul fade right now...he was reacting again, and it was killing him. He watched Deed turn, saw the betrayal in her eyes.

He wanted to die at that moment. He wished that he hadn't crawled out of Shooting Star's maw.

"So you did die against Karla. Or you came close enough." She shook her head. "So what does that make you now?"

"Deed..."

She leapt back, blurring. "Don't touch me." Three floating leaps later, she was heading out of the cavern.

Alex collapsed. He'd always planned on dying at the end, but he'd wanted it to seem like it was some sort of sacrifice; he'd be dead, he wouldn't care about a heroic reputation then. But he'd been desperate not to let her know before.

Soul Crusher whined through the air.

It wasn't mind, body, or even truly soul that moved him then; something stirred deeply, and Alex's body swayed under the murderous cut before launching itself to its feet, just in time for the return stroke of Soul Crusher to catch the dagger that had found its way into his hands somewhere along the way, and send him flying back onto his ass.

He stared incredulously at Ashram even as he wondered where that had come from; it wasn't the flowing soul, and his body didn't HAVE proper reflexes anymore; where had THAT come from? "What?"

Ashram snorted. "You little girl. You're just going to let it end like THAT? What, no fight to survive from the Coyote?" He smirked diabolically. "No heroic 'love conquers all?'"

Ashram staggered back, his hand flying to his cheek; a line of blood trickled down from where Alex's dagger had hit him. Alex's eyes were burning, hotter and hotter, but in a color they'd never seen. Brown had become red, red had become violet...and now the baleful color had deepened, until a dark, hungry blue stared back.

"Heroic?" Achiya somehow snapped into his hands. "Don't you EVER!" Achiya flared, rust and blood. "Use that word to describe me again." His eyes blazed at everyone there for a moment, but only for a moment; they faded back to brown quickly enough. Still, it had been enough.

Ashram watched Alex charge the walls, bounding and dragging himself up the coarse stone in turns; it had been disgusting seeing him fold like that over some idiot girl. He would be damned if he'd allow that.

However...

Chiffon started as she found Soul Crusher leveled at her face. Ashram ignored the sudden fear in her eyes; he didn't care. "You didn't react when Skurai told us that Alex was a dead man."

"Dying, not dead," she whispered.

"Dying then. You knew. You know exactly what's going on." His eyes glittered. "I want an explanation." Soul Crusher Roared for a moment, blasting the half-elf off her feet even as it sent the rest of them sprawling. "Now."

He frowned when the tip of Kashue's lance was laid across his sword. He glared at the desert king, and was impressed despite himself at how readily Kashue met his glare.

Kashue forced the blade down. "I'm not going to let you question her at sword-point. Not in my country, and doubly not her; my men owe her our lives." His glare didn't waver as he helped Chiffon back to her feet. "I am, however, finding myself VERY annoyed at being kept in the dark." His eyes hardened. "You ARE going to explain this."

Chiffon gathered up Alex's dropped picks and daggers silently, not deigning to notice the glares directed at her by the two warrior kings. "It's going to be a very long story, and we don't have all that much time." She wrapped the weapons in her cloak and started towards the cave entrance. "I can tell you while we walk." She looked at Pirotess, and nodded to one of the wounded. "Help him."

Pirotess' eyes widened but at a curt nod from Ashram, she grudgingly went over. Though her help amounted largely to beating the man with the flat of her rapier when it looked like he wasn't going to keep up.

Ashram was one of the last to leave the cavern; he paused a long time to survey the devastation. Kashue paused as well, waiting for the Emperor of Marmo. Courtesy dictated as much. "Something troubling you?"

Ashram 'tched' as he looked over the bulk of the dead dragon. "What's not troubling about this situation? My greatest rival and possible ally in the unification of Lodoss is dying, my high priest is plotting behind my back and carry the greatest magical artifact in the history of Forceria, and I am floundering about in the dark." Kashue frowned at the 'ally' comment, but ignored it for the time.

Ashram laughed harshly, bitterly. "I find myself questioning everything, and oddly enough, my greatest fear is also my one comfort." He swept one hand out over Shooting Star's bulk. "My sword, one of the two Great Opposing Swords, the blade that was bathed in the heat blood of a demon, was useless against that thing. Talatsu, a blade said to be feared by the gods was even less. And your three enchanted dragon slaying lances of myrii, created by an entire brotherhood for the sole purpose of slaying this beast, foretold in legend, were in the end almost completely superfluous." He shook his head. "No, we owe our lives to one man who had steel, recklessness, and cunning on his side." His hand clenched. "And my hard-won symbol of Imperial Sovereignty tries to seduce me to its power in the face of my...inadequacy." He barked a laugh. "And yet, that knowledge might well be what turns the tables in my favor against Wagnard." He smiled grimly. "After all, my greater magic was useless; who's to say that Wagnard's scepter will be as dangerous as he thinks it to be?" With a sweep of his cape, he exited the cavern.

Kashue watched him for a moment, then turned back to stare at the carcass. Ashram's words were profound, and no small comfort to a fighting man, any fighting man who put his faith in steel, strength, nerve, and experience over witchcraft. However, his mention of Soul Crusher's birth disturbed him. After all, bathing in the blood of a demon had been enough to create a weapon powerful enough to slay armies and turn fortresses to rubble (if one was willing to work hard enough).

He thought of those blood-drenched war picks, and tried to consider just how much more powerful Shooting Star had been than that demon. And he had to wonder, would the blood stop at changing those weapons?

He remembered only too well the sight of Alex emerging, drenched head to toe in the blood of Shooting Star's death.

To be continued...

Author's Notes: Well, I finally managed to get this chapter where I wanted it. Hopefully this will be enough to keep you happy for a bit as I start working on the next chapter; I'm planning three more full chapters before this fic is done, plus a short epilogue.

Then it's on to the next chapter in the Chronicles of Murphy: Evangelion, Full Metal Alchemist, and the disturbing similarities therein. In which it gets far bigger and more complicated than we ever thought it would be.

Preview of the next Chapter: Not really a preview. Sorry. But in case you're wondering, Alex and Deedlit are finally going to hash it all out; all the lies, all the stories, all the feelings. And of course Wagnard shows up to muck it all to hell...


	15. Chapter 14: Dying and the Dead

_**Chronicles of Murphy**_

_**Book 1: Book of the Accursed**_

**Disclaimer:** Once upon a time, there was a magical place where people didn't have to tell you they weren't allowed to make money off of writing something, even though they weren't TRYING to make money, and were just doing it for fun.

Unfortunately, this isn't that place. So I own Alex and that's about it; no money was made in the production of this fic, no cat-girls were harmed in the creation of it, and whatever happens is the product of my warped and twisted mind.

Enjoy.

**Warning:** This is slightly dark, vaguely tragic, and VERY angsty and emotional. And worst of all, this chapter is VERY important to both the story and character development. So you're kind of stuck reading it. For those of you don't like angst and emotional claptrap, I apologize, but this is the way the story developed.

You have been warned.

_**Chapter Fourteen**_

The Dying and the Dead

"Magnificent."

Wagnard forced himself to breath as he felt the cool length of the scepter resting in his hands. Hearing the legends hadn't prepared him for the sheer POWER in this simple length of chipped, ancient marble. Legends told of gods bowing down before this symbol. Mythology claimed that all the magic of Lodoss would bend to the will of the man who held this imperial token.

At that moment, he believed it.

His priest remained bowed. He'd been in the middle of preparing another ritual transport spell when Wagnard somehow arrived. It worried him, truth be told; why would Wagnard need to come in person? What could possibly have been so important for him to leave Marmo?

Wagnard smirked. He giggled. He cackled. He ROARED with maniacal laughter. IT WAS FINALLY WITHIN HIS GRASP, THE POWER TO MAKE THE GODS WEEP! Never again would he bow before fools with swords and stones and sticks. Never again would he have to wonder whether his schemes would reach fruition. With this...no, never again. Because with the Scepter in his hands, he'd never have to scheme again. What mattered thought, planning, cunning when you had in your hands more power than anything else? He couldn't be stopped, he couldn't be killed, he could literally do anything he desired with this.

And what he wanted at that moment more than anything else was to raise Kardis, and set her to licking his boots clean.

His eyes shimmered red as he began to weave the magic of the scepter to his ends. Kardis had failed him; she had humiliated him before Ashram and Beld. When he'd needed her power, when he'd needed her to put the sword-swinging cretins in their place, she'd proved inadequate. She had betrayed him; she had proven herself less than him then. Now it was simply time to show the rest of the world that fact, that the mighty goddess who had cursed their lives for so long was nothing compared to their True God, Wagnard of Marmo! NO! WAGNARD WAS DEAD; ONLY THE GOD EXISTED NOW!

Cackling madly, he summoned the magic currents of Lodoss, and began to weave them to his ends. Crackling black lightning erupted, consuming his mortal form, and began racing across the skies of Lodoss.

He had some new acquaintances to make.

The priest watched his leader disappear, and laughed. The man was mad; completely and utterly mad. He did much honor to Kardis in his insanity, but it was only too clear that she'd have to destroy him for it. A pity; only the faithful should be destroyed. He shrugged philosophically; therein lay the paradox of destruction, a gift that should only have been for the faithful, and yet had to be bestowed on all.

He wondered if Wagnard would be able to laugh so loudly when the scepter inevitably failed him. He wondered if the idiot high priest had ever stopped to wonder why another supposedly ambitious, high-ranking priest like him hadn't bothered to try and use the scepter for himself.

He knelt, and scraped away the chalk diagram on the ground; there was no longer any urgency in his task; he could afford to use the best (and most time-consuming) spells of transport. Pulling a small bag of Dust of Onyx from his robes, he began to carefully drizzle the shimmering black grains into the mystic diagrams.

_Wagnard must think me an idiot,_ he reflected as he worked on his spell. _He doesn't even realize that he can't manage that thing; his intellect is not up to Godhood._ He shrugged as the diagram continued to take place; he'd need a large array to manage this sort of long-range teleportation, and that meant LOTS of places where he could make a mistake.

There was a reason the Kastuulians had only used the scepter as a symbol; there was a reason why Shooting Star had only guarded the artifact and never tried to use its power.

Like all things, there was a price to wild the Scepter of Domination. Wagnard really should have considered whether or not he was even capable of, let alone willing paying it.

---------

Elves can make swift, easy, floating leaps; gravity is less of a concern to your average Forcerian elf than it is to a similar human. Climbing is an easy thing for them; any form of motion is, really. It had taken Deedlit less than a minute to leave the caverns, and not even another minute to descend the slopes and ride off.

East, back to the forests of Alan. Back to the Forest of No Return.

Alex was in superb shape for a human, particularly when he was willing to burn the soul-time to be at his best. Unfortunately, he could neither fly nor levitate even in part; it had taken him quite a bit longer to reach the caverns; he'd sprinted through the tunnels, but he'd only managed to reach the slopes outside in time to notice which way Deed was riding. Descending the slopes had been no picnic; he'd devoted his full attention and time to making sure he got down the slopes quickly, rather than carefully, and for all that he couldn't feel it he knew he'd bruised his legs badly; probably sprained an ankle at least. In the end, Deed had gotten nearly a head start of nearly two minutes, entirely on horseback by the time he got into Bucephalus's saddle.

The sprinting Lusitano had made that up within miles.

Pounding after her, he shook his head doggedly, struggling to keep the dust out of his eyes and throat. "DEED! SLOW DOWN!"

She heard; she turned back long enough to notice, and pointedly turned back around and kicked her horse into a full gallop.

Growling under his breath, he stood in the stirrups, using his knees to cushion the jarring strides of the gray stallion. IF she didn't want to say anything to him, fine. If she didn't want to listen, hey, that was her right. On the other hand, he wanted to say something to her; he wanted to talk. A bit of a switch for him, but we all have our moments.

More importantly, after Ashram had shaken him out of his stupor, he'd discovered something odd.

He wasn't upset about making Deed unhappy. Or at the very least that wasn't the only emotion going through his mind.

Alex was pissed. Not battle-rage, red-eyed angry, he was simply and naturally pissed at the elf that was once again making his life hell. What the hell was her problem; she knew he was secretive, she'd respected that before. What fucking right did SHE have to be pissed in this? HE was the one dying for Christ's sake! Running off like that...he was going to yank her off her horse and sit on her until she agreed to hear him out if that's what it took to get her to calm down.

_Might not be the best idea,_ Cain supplied.

"Shut the fuck up. EVERYTHING that's happened is because you and that asshole in the store dumped me here."

_Caveat emptor._

"...are you telling me that I should have been wary that a piece of pseudo-mystical-looking jewelry would inadvertently drop me in another world, and then start pushing me psychologically into the role of a hero, when I HATE the whole idea of heroism, inadvertently putting me in a position to oppose a dispossessed body-stealing witch who would try to rip out my soul, screw up, and leave me to die slowly?"

_...hey, I'm just saying._

Cyrus winged overhead; Chiffon was good at finding places he liked scratched, but he owed Alex way too much for what had happened. If nothing else, he figured that he was more likely to get the whole story here, and not second-hand. _Damned curiosity,_ he thought balefully._ Only ever gets me into trouble._ Swooping low enough to be seen, he chose to chime in. _He's got a point. Chasing her down and forcing her to listen might not be the best way to get her to see things your way._ He screeched, barely dodging a vertical thrust of Achiya.

Alex didn't bother looking. "Just so we're clear, I'm still pretty pissed at you too. If Cain and that shopkeeper hadn't dropped me here, I wouldn't be dying and notorious. If you'd kept that metaphysical beak of yours shut, I wouldn't HAVE to chase Deed down to get her to listen to me. So. Either of you have any ideas as to how to fix this situation?"

_...nope, I'm drawing a blank._

Cyrus shrugged mid-flight (watching carefully to make sure that Alex wasn't going for a projectile of some sort) as he flew just out of spear-range. _Sorry. Never had much to do with placating females of any species._

"Then both of you, PLEASE, shut the fuck up." Thankfully, they remained quiet.

During the brief conversation, he'd drawn closer to Deed; he was less than ten feet behind and to the side. Forcing a flare of soul-time into his legs, he hopped both feet into the middle of his saddle, and leapt.

Unfortunately, Deed chose to look his way just before his feet cleared the saddle; enough time for her to draw her rapier and swipe at him.

It didn't connect, but it was literally the last thing he'd expected from her. He managed to land on one foot, but between surprise and momentum, he ended up rolling in the dust, his still-bloody clothing leaving rusty patches of sand.

Deedlit pulled her horse around to him. He forced himself to meet her gaze.

"I told you not to touch me. Just go away." Heeling her horse around, she set it back to a trot, headed east.

_...told you so._

Alex grabbed the pendant, and tore the leather thong as he ripped it off. He wasn't sure WHAT prompted him to do, but on equal parts whim and instinct, he forced some of his soul-time into the object.

The metaphysical scream literally blasted him off his feet.

It took him a moment to sit back up. Eyes wide, he stared at the pendant; physically, it was unchanged, but...

Cyrus swooped down, regarding him with an unreadable expression. _...I don't think that was such a good idea._

He stared at it for a moment, then catching sight of Deed's dwindling dust trail, he tossed it to Cyrus. "Hang on to him, alright?" He rose, eyebrows rising as Bucephalus dutifully trotted nearer. "Since when have YOU gotten so obedient?" He smirked as Bucephalus's seemingly friendly bent neck ended with an attempt to bite off a finger. "That's more like it." Pulling himself into the saddle, he favored the crow with a long look. "Care to tell me what I just did?"

_Something that I REALLY think you should never do again; you just burned three days worth of time in a fraction of a second._

He nodded slowly. "Yeah, I can still feel the wrenching." He shook his head. "That was really stupid of me, wasn't it?"

_...bastard..._came the weak reply from the pendant.

Shaking his head, he simply rode after Deed.

Cyrus set the pendant down, walking around a bit to look on it carefully for a while. He stopped circling when he was facing it head-on.

Cain spoke first, voice still weak from the ordeal. _Was that...?_

Cyrus nodded. _Yeah. That was the Sundering._ The crow bobbed its head side to side; it couldn't manage a more human-style head-shake. _He just burned three days of his life away to give you the great-grand-daddy of all pimp slaps._

Cain managed a weak chuckle. _Guess it's true what they say about the quiet ones. Don't piss 'em off._

Cyrus watched Alex ride off. Bending down, he grasped Cain by the longer end of the leather thong, and took off. Cain spoke again. _He'll use it again, you know that, right?_ Cyrus didn't answer, but he didn't really have to. _He's really screwed now, you realize that right? If he tries that against Kardis – _

_You have to tell him about the horse,_ Cyrus interrupted.

_WHAT?! Why do I have to tell him?! YOU'RE the expert on time and dying things, YOU tell him!_

Cyrus dropped the pendant, listening to it scream obscenities at him for a moment before swooping down and catching the pendant again, two feet before it would have struck solid stone. Cyrus mentally directed a sweet smile at the pendant's spirit. _You're going to tell him, because you weren't in a position to do so until now. You have an excuse; I don't. Got it?_

Cain growled. _I swear, if I had moving parts..._Cyrus just smirked. Cain growled again. _Fine. But YOU still have to explain the Sundering._

Cyrus lost his smile. Somehow, he had a feeling he'd just gotten the short end of the stick.

--------

Deedlit fumed quietly as she rode towards her home. She'd known something was wrong; he'd all but told her back when they'd first left Tarba. It wasn't that that had her so angry, at least not totally. It wasn't even the fact that he was dying. She'd seen him almost die dozens of times; shortly after he began to recover, she'd been forced to come to terms with the fact that someday she was going to watch him die, from old age if nothing else. She wasn't angry over that. Well, again, at least not entirely.

So why...

Hoof-beats invaded her thoughts. Turning, she growled in her throat; he'd caught up to her again. "I SAID GO AWAY!"

Alex ignored her; he didn't even make eye contact. Rather than trying another jump, he simply kept Bucephalus in a full gallop, pulling first abreast with her, and then a little bit ahead. Then, he simply yanked hard on the reins, pulling the much larger stallion around.

Deedlit's eyes bulged as the heavier horse came around in a collision course with her own; she leapt clear at the last moment, the sudden body-blow from Bucephalus sending her horse stumbling and falling to the sand.

Floating, she managed to right herself in midair, landing. Remaining momentum forced her feet into the sand, kicking up a plume, but she managed. Glaring at Alex, she watched as he dismounted, approaching her. He left his lance behind; simply walking up to her with a hard, but otherwise unreadable expression on his face. She drew her rapier; she didn't want to hurt him...well, not much anyway, but still... "Alex, just walk away."

He ignored her, drawing closer.

Breath hissing between her teeth, she raised the blade even with his throat; he came to a stop before her, still at sword-point. "Alex, there's nothing left to say. Just leave. Go cuddle Chiffon or something..."

She didn't see his hands move. All she knew was that he suddenly had the blade of her rapier in both hands; one at the tip, the other halfway down the blade. She gasped in pain as he twisted; the basket hilt on her sword made it all but impossible to disarm her, but it also made it all but impossible to release the sword. "Alex, you're hurting me!" He didn't respond. "Alex – "

Her breath froze as he released the tip of the blade from one hand and used the other to impale himself on her sword. He dragged it right through his chest; left side, just under the collarbone; he didn't stop until his left hand was flush with his chest. Ignoring her shocked look, he grabbed the hilt, and dragged the sword completely into his chest. He finished by grabbing her by the front of her shirt and physically hauling her off her feet; he had to bend her around for a moment to let her bend her sword arm still caught in the rapier's hilt without dislocating something.

He forced her to meet his gaze; he imagined that she would have preferred him angry and yelling; at the moment he wanted her completely off balance. "Do I have your attention?" She didn't nod; she didn't even move. He tossed her back, letting her flail to the ground, falling on her ass. He grimaced as she inadvertently drew the sword out from his shoulder. He didn't bother to try and stop the bleeding, he just stared at her. "What?"

She looked at his chest; still caked in dragon's blood, you couldn't even tell where the fresh wound was. "You...what was that for?"

"I needed to get your complete, and undivided attention. So." He dropped down into a squat, looking straight at her. "Talk. I want to know what's going on. Is it that distasteful to associate with a dead man walking? Did I betray your confidence somehow?" He shook his head tiredly. "I'm not going to let it end like this. Talk."

She stared at him. "You're unbelievable." Rising, she stalked over to him. Glaring down at him, she slapped him. Hard. "You kept something like this from me for all this time, how did you expect me to react?" She slapped him again. "You lied to me!" Slap. "You tricked me!" Slap! "YOU DIDN'T TRUST ME!" SLAP! SLAP! She grit her teeth, grabbing him by the collar. "Stand up," she growled. "STAND UP!"

He remained seated, staring up at her.

Dashing angry, hot tears from her eyes, she slapped him again. "DAMN YOU! Why couldn't you tell me? Why didn't you trust me?" Slaps weren't enough; balling up a fist, she slugged him in the jaw as hard as she could. "WHY DID YOU TRUST HER INSTEAD?!"

He rubbed his jaw idly. "You mean Chiffon?"

Eyes wide, she snatched at a knife, and tackled him. "YES! YES CHIFFON! WHY DO YOU TRUST HER SO MUCH MORE THAN ME?! WHY?! WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT HER, WHAT'S SO MUCH BETTER ABOUT HER THAN ME?!"

Alex watched her sob; normally, this should have turned him into helpless mush. Less than an hour ago, it would have. Now... He gently laid her down, pushing her to the side. He watched the knife drop from her fingers; he'd grabbed her wrists when she'd tackled him, but for all that she'd drawn on him, she hadn't ever bothered to try and do anything with the blade. "Chiffon did know about it," he said quietly. "She knew about it because two hours ago, Cyrus told her. That was the first she knew about it."

"You're crow?" she bit out between sobs. "You expect me to believe that your pet bird talks?"

"DON'T." she started at the harsh tone. Looking up, his face was unchanged. "You know exactly what Cyrus is, or near enough. If I can see it, so can you." He stooped, picking up her knife. "I didn't trust Chiffon, if that's how you want to think about it." He shrugged, examining the knife. It would do. "It's not really that I didn't trust you; I knew you'd be upset one way or the other." He shrugged again. "It's just my nature to put off trouble as long as I can. It may not be the best plan, but I've always been more interested in my immediate, present happiness than my long-term well-being." He managed a sad grin. "Not much of a survivor trait, I suppose; so much for me being a coyote."

Deedlit sniffled. "It's not just this, it just drove it home. You like Chiffon; you're in love with her. I don't think anyone in the world doesn't know at this point." She shook her head. "So why do you even stay around me; are we just friends? Am I a charity case or something, a little lost girl you need to protect?" Her sniffles turned angry. "I don't need you to protect me Alex; I want a friend, not a protector." She looked up at him; her eyes fell on the knife. "What are you going to do with that?" She glared up at him. "Is the poor little elf girl too weak for a knife? Do you need to keep it, to shelter her?"

He simply looked at her for a time. _So proud,_ he thought. _I've always thought I knew her better than she knew me because of that stupid show; she knows me because she knows me. Same as I know her._ He mentally smiled. _She's not like the Deed in that show anyway. She knew all the time I was trying to shelter her, and it pissed her off. Parn might have ended up with a damsel in distress; I ended up with a warrior._ He shook his head. "No, you've proven to me quite well that you can handle a knife." She had the grace to look away. He shook his head; he might see things her way but still...his anger hadn't quite burned out yet. "No, I just wanted to make you understand something that your poor little elf brain is too fluffy to understand."

Her eyes shot up angrily, then widened in horror.

The moment she'd made eye contact, he'd stabbed himself in the hand. Not content with that, he then reversed his grip on the blade, and yanked it out, cutting his hand in half along the metacarpals, from just past his wrist to the space between his middle and ring fingers before letting the knife drop.

She shot to her feet. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Seizing the knife, she slashed her shirt's hem, tearing off a strip of bandage.

He seized both of her wrists is his good right hand, forcing her to watch. "Look at it. A cut like that, I should be gushing blood, shouldn't I?" His conversational tone didn't help her nerves at all. "It's like syrup; Skurai was right, it's like the blood of a corpse. Cold, slow in the veins...I'm bleeding like a zombie, I suppose. And it didn't hurt; no pain at all." He shook his head, laughing bitterly. "I just crippled my left hand, and I didn't feel a thing. No pain...no remorse, for that matter." His smile turned a bit manic. "No, what does it matter? I can just pull the puppet strings with my almighty flowing soul, and look!" The two halves came together, the fingers curling and flexing carefully, precisely. "Good as new!"

He shoved her back to the ground; off-balance, he wanted her off-balance. "I'm dying Deed. I've been dying since the day I left Karla's tower. I've been going numb the whole time; I can't feel a thing. Not a sword in my chest, a knife in my hand...I can't feel your skin when you touch me. If you kissed me, I wouldn't feel your lips on my face. If you embraced me, I wouldn't feel your arms around me." His smile was fading; angry enough to let go now, he poured soul-time into his body. "I don't have expressions anymore Deed; I'm burning away precious reserves of life JUST SO I CAN MOVE MY FACE ENOUGH TO **MAKE** YOU SEE HOW FUCKING PISSED OFF I AM!" She said something; he didn't hear. "My sense of taste is gone, Deed; I can barely smell, and it's only a matter of time before I go deaf and blind too; I pray every night that my body holds together JUST long enough to get the job done."

He fell to his knees, his anger becoming madness; it was nearly impossible to tell one from the other now. "I'm dying, Deed," he whispered. "I'm going to die in less than two months, if I even last that long. I'm never going to see you again. I'm never going to know if Chiffon ever managed to find peace, or happiness. I'm never going to know if Fahn and Beld reconcile, if their dreams of one Lodoss will come to be." He looked up at her, angry tears running down his face. "I'm never going to know if Jebra will be allowed to set foot in his home again. I'm never going to find out whether or not Ariel succeeds in seducing Wood; I'm never going to know if Etoh and Fiana manage to fall in love." He laughed through his tears. "I'm dying Deed, I've been dying for one hundred and eight days, and I'm going to die in less than forty five. I'm dying, and everything is being stripped away from me one shred at a time." He stared at her, eyes burning through every shade of anger he'd ever felt too fast to tell. "I'm losing everything, I'm going to lose everything..." he grit his teeth. "AND YOU HAVE THE FUCKING GALL TO ACT LIKE YOU'RE THE VICTIM IN ALL THIS?!"

She stared at him. She watched it all fall away. Every illusion, every facade. The irritable warrior, the peace-maker, the reluctant leader...the lancer, the archer...the prankster, the smile...it all fell off, one bit at a time. Breaking. She was watching a man fall to pieces, a man she loved break.

And underneath it was a man. A simple, battered man who'd never wanted any of it. A man who was dying, and grieving for every second of it...

And he'd kept it all inside. He'd tried to keep all the grief to himself, tried to keep her from knowing.

She shook her head as she watched tears stream down his face; he wasn't crying now. Inside he was crying, but his body was just...leaking. _He can't even cry anymore...he can't spare it._

He looked up dully as pale arms encircled his head; true to his words, he couldn't feel them anymore. His brown eyes met hers; he watched diamond teardrops fall from emerald eyes. "I wasn't just trying to make a point; I really can't feel anything. But I wish to god I could."

She leaned down, kissing his forehead. It was cold to touch; too cold to be a living man, but she kissed it all the same. "I'm sorry Alex."

He smiled tiredly. "I'm sorry too."

He couldn't feel her arms around him; he'd burned too much in his anger. He had to conserve now. This was the last time he'd likely be with her; Wagnard would be showing up in a few days to try and kidnap her, and then he was going to die on Marmo. This was almost literally the last time he'd see her, and he couldn't even waste the energy to feel her embrace him.

"Why did this happen?" he asked finally. "Why was I sent here?" He shook his head. "Parn could have done this; if that idiot could pull this off, anybody could have. At least in the end; Karl would have made a great hero of Lodoss with the right pushes. It's not like there's a shortage of wanna-be heroes in the world, why not grab one of them? Why did they bother to send me?"

Deed gently drew his face up; he'd said he would eventually go blind, but he wasn't blind yet. She wanted him to see her face. "Could they really have done it? Could they have done everything that you did?"

He snorted disdainfully. "Oh come on; I told you how it might have gone. Is this really all that much better? A handful of Alanian soldiers are alive; only problem is that they've been branded traitors to their country, and can never go back." He'd only found out recently; Jebra, and all the men who he'd tried to save at Fortress Myce had been banished, officially for deserting their post.

Everyone knew that it was really for forcing Kadamos into the war.

Deedlit smiled; hearing that a minute ago might have incensed her, but not right now. "I think that they would be very upset to hear you talking about them like that." She knelt down, face-to-face with him. "What about Kannon? What about all the men you saved on the battlefield, what about the thousands, the millions who might live with Shooting Star dead? For the love of god, look at Ashram! The Emperor of Marmo came a thousand miles out of his way, and fought alongside the King of Flaim; you've put someone on the throne who might unite Lodoss without destroying it, without conquering it." She cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to look her straight in the eye. "Alex, you might not want to be a hero; you might have been happier if you'd never come here. But there are thousands of men, women, children...all sorts of creatures all across Lodoss who are alive when they might have been dead, happy when they might be in mourning, thriving where they might have starved. I don't think Parn could have managed that; I don't think anyone else on Lodoss would have tried. Whatever else you might think, YOU did all of this. You're the one who cared. And I think that's why you were able to do it; I don't know why you were sent, but I'm glad that you were."

He watched her silently for a long time; she just held his gaze. He cared about Chiffon, sure, but Deed...he sighed. "I'm sorry, I'm just...I'm emotionally wiped out. It's hard for me to think about this sensibly." She rose to help him up, but he grabbed her hand; he didn't want her to leave just yet. "Deed, there's something I want to tell you, and I might not get another chance." He took a deep breath. "Deed, you're right about Chiffon. I do care about her, I do want to see her happy." He held his breath; she didn't pull away, she didn't let anger into her eyes. "I never told you how this might have ended, because I wasn't sure. I'm sure now; I won't let it end any other way. But I want you to know...I care about her, yes...but you're the one I've been trying to stay alive for."

She looked into his eyes; everyone talked about how piercing they were, or how frightening they got when he was angry. Why didn't anyone ever notice his normal eyes? She tried to think what his eyes had been when they'd met, and for the life of her she couldn't remember...they were the same as Orson's eyes now, like an animal's. "You should have tried to stay alive for yourself." She smiled at the confused look; as much as he'd been confusing her, he deserved a little bit of it himself. "That's why you're in this mess, you know?" She shook her head. "I'll bet Parn didn't die in the end of his story. Did he?" Alex wordlessly shook his head. "Which means you changed something, and it cost you your life." She gently laid a finger on his lips; he didn't look like he was going to talk, but you never knew. "I won't ask what, or who. But tell me this much Alex.

"Was it worth it?"

He paused, thinking back on it. It had started with Jebra; he'd gotten himself recognized. Saving Kannon and his family hadn't helped...neither had saving Fiana. Beld and Fahn had brought it to the breaking point...Ghim had sealed his fate.

He was going to die...so that people he cared about could live.

He thought about Leylia; she wouldn't have to bear the burden of a death for her safety now (they were really just acquaintances, and they'd long since come to terms with his death). He thought about the two Kingdoms that might survive now, that might prosper where they had once just endured. He thought about Karl, who might never have been, and who was now a lord on his way to prosperity with the woman he loved at his side.

He thought about Chiffon...if not for Kannon, they never would have met. She'd be stronger now, she'd be strong enough...

He thought about Deed.

And he smiled.

"Yes. It was worth it."

---------

Chiffon laid it all out for them. Earth, Kardis, the scepter...she told them everything.

She told every man there that Kardis was waking up, that Wagnard intended to resurrect the mad goddess. She told them all that Alex was from another world, sent to save this one. She told them that he was dying, cut down by Karla's spell but not yet dead. And she told them all, that Alex was the only hope left for Lodoss.

"What, do you take me for a fool?"

It wasn't the most polite or diplomatic way to put it, but it was the truth. And it wasn't like Ashram had all that much use for diplomacy in the first place.

Chiffon shrugged. "I don't care if you believe me or not; that's the truth as I know it. Lodoss is going to have to fight a goddess unless we stop someone who's already wielding a weapon more powerful than she is. Alex is going to try to stop them both; what you do is up to you."

Soul Crusher cleared its sheath. "Witch, I am getting VERY tired of people treating me like a fool. Now. You are going to tell me what's really going on, or I'm going to kill you."

Kashue's lance leveled on top of the Demon Sword. "I've had enough of you – "

Without a glance, Ashram snapped Soul Crusher upward; the concentrated wave of demonic force was enough to send Kashue, Shadam, and every man standing behind him flying nearly forty feet away. "You are not in control. Remember that." He turned his glare on Chiffon. "Now tell me what's really going on. No more fairy tales about someone coming to save Lodoss from afar. Who is Alex Latrans? What is his purpose? What are his plans? And what will it take to stop him?"

Chiffon smiled, somehow sad and prideful all at once. "I'm not going to tell you that. And you're not going to do a thing to me." She batted the blade away; he wasn't exerting much pressure, but still...

Ashram seized her by the hair and yanked her back off her feet. Slamming the tip of his sword into the ground at her neck, he knelt down, forcing her to meet his gaze at point-blank range. "You presume a great deal witch. Do you honestly think that you can stop me? You beat me once because I didn't believe you could do it; I know better now. You wasted a chance to kill me, the only chance you had. So you don't get to dictate what will or won't be said here."

Chiffon met his gaze levelly. She didn't care if he threatened her. "Do you know why you're not going to do anything to me?" She smiled. "Alex would kill you if you so much as scarred me."

Ashram pressed the blade against her neck, enough to part skin, but not draw blood.

Enough for her to feel Soul Crusher's hunger.

"Witch, do you honestly think I'm afraid of Latrans? I respect him; he's strong enough to deserve that. But I am NOT afraid of him."

She just watched him. "You're going to let me go now Ashram. Because if you hurt me, then Alex will kill you. And because I'll already be dead, you can't use me for a hostage or a shield." She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Do you have even the slightest idea how determined he is? You have perseverance, but can you match his?" She smiled mockingly. "Tell me something Ashram. Is your will so great that you can force your dying flesh to live? Alex's is."

Ashram stared at her for a long time. Long enough for Kashue to get back on his feet and contemplate cutting Ashram's throat (and Pirotess's, probably out of necessity) that night when they made camp. Though if he could get the arrogant son-of-a-bitch to face him without that damnable sword...

Ashram stared at the half-elf witch. He stared into deep blue eyes deeper and emptier than anything he'd ever seen. She believed. No less fanatically than Wagnard, she believed in the man she was placing on a pedestal. He could kill her without breaking a sweat, without a pang of remorse.

But she wouldn't talk. And she was right about one thing at least; Alex would not take kindly to her death, nor her murderer.

He wasn't afraid of Alex; fearing the madman would have been laughable. Fear implied helplessness; you only feared what you could not stop. Alex was good, and unpredictable enough to be considered a real threat. But if the two of them crossed blades...

Soul Crusher growled as he withdrew it from the sands. Still smarting from losing the chance to eat the dragon, she wanted the half-elf's blood and soul; it had been a long time since she'd been given a proper mage's soul. Still, however flimsy the pretext, this was an excuse for Ashram to finally be done with Wagnard. And for all his posturing, for all his demands, he didn't need answers; he made his own truth. If only he would realize it.

Ashram sheathed his sword as he gazed at the half-elf. "Why is it, I wonder, that only madmen and madwomen flock to Latrans's side?"

Chiffon smiled from the sand. "You came to his side as I recall."

Ashram snorted as Pirotess brought his horse around; it was long past time to return to Marmo. "I came to repay a debt." Without waiting for a reply, he wheeled his horse and rode off.

Chiffon watched him leave. "You came."

Kashue approached, watching the emperor of Marmo ride off. "Good riddance." Watching Chiffon out of the corner of his eye, he frowned. "I hate to ask this, but..."

Chiffon bowed her head, laughing under her breath. "You doubt me too."

Kashue bowed. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I do. This...this tale is simply to fantastical to be real. And frankly, if the Heavens had decided to send us a savoir, I think that they would have sent someone a bit more amiable to the role."

Chiffon's smile never wavered. "Someone more amiable. Someone who would defend the peace of Lodoss with his very life? Someone who would throw away everything but the need to save Lodoss?"

Kashue shrugged. "Perhaps."

"Do you think someone like that would have lasted long enough to do it?"

Kashue was silent. She believed it; he had no doubt of that. But a person can believe anything. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "But I still need proof."

Thunder crashed; black lightning raced across the sky, a mad, sinister cackle in its wake.

Less than a half-mile south, Ashram spun his horse, staring in shock at the passing trail of sky-fire. "...I know that laugh." He started as he realized that he was being watched; Chiffon's half-lidded gaze was still trained on him...a mocking smile on her lips. Gritting his teeth, he turned his mount about and forced into a gallop south and east. If Wagnard crossed his path...

Chiffon watched the lightning crackle to the north; it wouldn't take long for it to reach them. She wished them well; it was all she could do. She'd felt the Scepter down in the tunnels; she'd felt it from miles away, long before they reached the mountain. And she knew that if she went there and tried to help, she would either die or end up getting everyone else killed.

It's no easy thing to try and live on faith.

Kashue swallowed thickly; it had taken him a moment to realize how long it had been since he'd last breathed. "That...was that..."

Chiffon simply nodded.

"...Fuck me."

Even Shadam stared at the king's obscenity.

Kashue scrubbed a hand through his hair, staring bewildered at the sky. "Fuck me. It's true?" He shook his head, half-wildly. "We have to trust that lunatic to stop that other madman?" He shook his head again; the shock was less now, but his worldview had still taken a beating. "Madmen. It all comes down to madmen. Kings, blackguards, emperors, heroes, knights, wizards, priests, and demons...the gods had all of Lodoss, all of Alecrast...hell, all of Forceria to choose from, and they chose madmen." He snorted. "Either the gods have a twisted sense of humor, or there's something we're all missing."

Two sets of hoof-beats sounded on the desert scrub; one set clear, the other a distant rumble. Kashue looked up in time to catch sight of three riders. He recognized Slayn and Leylia easily enough, but the third... "Slayn. Leylia. I hope you're here with some good news. There's precious little of it here and now." He nodded politely to their companion. "I apologize if I don't remember you, but I've got a lot on my mind at the moment."

Wort ignored them, scanning the group. Settling his gaze on Chiffon, he barked at her, "you. You were always hanging all over him, so you probably know. Where's Alex? We need to talk. NOW."

Chiffon bowed slightly. "A pleasure to see you too, Master Wort." Ignoring the goggling around her, she replied. "You'll find Alex a few miles due east of here. Though considering that Wagnard has likely already arrived with the Scepter of Domination in his grasp, you might want to reconsider following too closely."

Wort's eyes bulged. "That!...Gods above, that's all Lodoss needs." He shook his head. "Listen, I don't have time for any of this. Alex is dying, don't ask me how, and in his condition if he gets desperate, there's no telling WHAT could happen."

"We know he's dying," Kashue replied calmly. "We just found out; something about his soul leaking from his body, correct?"

Wort's eyes narrowed. "I won't ask how you know that. I also," he bit out, glaring at Chiffon, "won't ask why no one saw fit to bring this to my attention earlier; I might have been able to do something about it. Probably not, but I could have tried." He turned to look at them. "However, it's a GREAT deal worse than you think it is."

Kashue frowned. "Worse? As I understand it, we've got a pair of lunatics dueling for the fate of Lodoss, and the one with the house odds on his side is going to try and wake up Kardis in the process. So would you be so kind as to explain HOW it could possibly be any worse?

Wort glowered; he was hot, he was sweaty, he was emotionally fried, and he absolutely HATED riding horses; he was always convinced the damned things were going to make a bowel-movement on his things, most of which were irreplaceable. On the one hand, somewhere inside he realized that the king was also in something of a bad mood. Mainly though, he didn't give a shit.

And so, he invoked the laws of Murphy.

And went into excruciating detail explaining just HOW it was worse.

When he was done, Kashue's earlier cursing would seem genteel by comparison.

---------

There was nothing in the world as exhilarating as this.

Power without measure, pure, primordial, power. The bindings and stitches that kept the world together were his to play with, to tangle, to cut, to weave as he saw fit. There was no power in Heaven above, Hell below, or through all the reaches of the earth below that could stop his power, that could so much as challenge his whim.

Wagnard flew through the air, black lightning whining around him, an endless, guttural roar of thunder in his wake. He who had once been forced to the indignity of horse-back, or a long, protracted spell ritual when he had to go one place immediately. Now, with nothing more than a thought he crashed through heaven itself on the back of thunder-stroke. He had once been forced to pray, to incant, to brew for his power, to abase himself before beings that dwelled in the lands he shat upon. Now thought became reality; if he wanted to be somewhere, he was there. If he wanted something, it was his for the taking.

And if someone opposed him? Why, they simply ceased to exist.

--------

Deedlit stared in shock and fear at the madman who had appeared from black lightning. It could have been the tenor of her discussion with Alex, but her first impression of the man was that he looked more dead than alive. There wasn't an ounce of non-vital flesh on his body; he was skin, bone, and what shreds of muscle were needed to force his body through the arcane gestures needed for spells. He was a skeleton wrapped in still-living skin and ornate crimson robes.

And for the last minute and a half, all he'd done was stand there and cackle insanely.

What should have been a moment of terror, the climactic entrance of the main villain for the first time on the center-stage was being reduced to a moment of annoyed confusion.

It should be noted that her shock was quickly wearing off, though not even the absurdity of Wagnard's continued laughter could shake her fear of the Scepter of Domination.

It took a while for Alex to get over his shock; he'd assumed that it would take weeks at most for the priest to get the scepter to Wagnard; days at the least. Truth be told, he'd hoped that he'd be able to track down and intercept the priest before he could get the scepter back to Marmo (he might have been resigned to dying in the final scene of Record of the Lodoss War, but if he could die WITHOUT taking part in a war against a goddess, he'd b perfectly happy).

And now, seemingly weeks if not months ahead of schedule, the one man on Lodoss he couldn't stop had shown up to kidnap Deedlit.

It had taken perhaps a half a minute for all this to go through his head; at this point though, he was already thinking.

He'd simply whispered 'keep him busy' to Deedlit and sprinted away obliquely, Bucephalus jogging over to pick him up.

Wagnard finally stopped cackling. He smirked at the high elf, and there was nothing in that baring of teeth that could be called a smile. "You cannot imagine how long I have been waiting for this moment, elf. How many plots and plans went awry before finally that which was always meant to be mine finally was...how many minions and pawns failed me before everything came to fruition." He sighed blissfully as he regarded the elf through half-lidded eyes. "Yes, this moment makes everything finally worth it."

Hoof-beats intruded into his reverie.

Frowning, he turned to the side, watching Bucephalus flash by towards Deed. He snickered. "So, the hero runs and sends his fast horse back as an afterthought?" His snicker became a brand-new round of cackling. "It seems the notorious Coyote is lacking in the manhood area, eh?"

"So are you now."

Startled by Alex's voice, Wagnard began to turn. He managed to face Alex full on just in time to take Achiya through the chest. Not content with that, Alex grabbed on, and in full stride yanked the cross-shaped spear downwards, slicing Wagnard in half through the crotch. Ignoring the shrill screams, he let the blade plant in the sand, and vaulted over the lunatic, kicking him in the face for good measure.

Alex hadn't simply run and tried to find a place for Deed; if Wagnard could track them across Lodoss and fly with wings of lightning, there wasn't anywhere to hide, and no speed that would be enough to run.

So he elected to do what he always did and confuse people.

He'd only run far enough away to be out of range of notice, then sent Bucephalus charging back towards the two of them. He'd sprinted across the sands on foot on the opposite side, trusting Wagnard's need for dramatic exposition and the sound of a horse in full gallop to mask the sound of his feet in the sand.

And had then proceeded to temporarily castrate the priest.

Bucephalus had wheeled carefully past Wagnard; he was in position for Alex to end his short vault and leap into the saddle without breaking stride. Breaking immediately into a gallop, he charged past Deed at full speed, not slowing even as Alex grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the saddle behind him.

Deed looked back, and winced. "Was all that necessary?" Certainly she thought he needed to die, but still...she wasn't even a male, and she didn't approve of what he'd just done. "Couldn't you have just killed him?"

"He's not dead," Alex bit out as he tried to urge more speed from Bucephalus. Drawing a knife, he slashed at the saddle girths holding most of his saddlebags and holsters; strap-aided pilum javelin and spare quivers, grooming equipment, bedroll, provisions...all left in the dust as he continued the charge, desperate for cover of some kind. He couldn't just kill Wagnard; he had to figure out how to get the Scepter away from him or else he wouldn't stay dead.

Deed's eyes widened. "What?!"

Alex grit his teeth. "He's a master of divine magic. Even if he doesn't use it much, he'd know healing. Using the scepter to amplify it, he can heal himself from even a stab through the heart, probably even a lost head."

He started as he felt her hands slip from his waist. Yanking hard on the reins, he dragged Bucephalus to a halt, staring at Deedlit as she started running.

Straight back towards Wagnard.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

Deed glared back at him as he rode Bucephalus back in front of her. "Alex you idiot, he's had the scepter for less than an hour! Even if that priest who stole it took it too him straight out of the mountain, he hasn't had anywhere NEAR the time he'd need to master it! WHY DIDN'T YOU TAKE IT THEN, WHEN YOU ATTACKED HIM?!" Glaring back, she charged back into the desert, back to Wagnard's corpse.

Alex stared after her. He should have taken the scepter then. He should have taken it, and taken Wagnard's head, all in that moment. So why had he run? Why hadn't he done it?

It burned him to think it, but he had no choice but to face the truth. He'd made his choice to do it like the movie. He'd chosen NOT to change anything but the details. More people were alive, but it hadn't changed anything; Wagnard still had the scepter. Ashram still waited with Soul Crusher for a showdown. Kardis was still going to wake up.

And he'd passively allowed the whole thing to come about...no. He had passively helped events come to this end.

This was his fault.

---------

Wagnard stared into the sky from where he lay prone. Oddly enough, he didn't feel much pain from the stroke; interestingly, he wasn't even bleeding a great deal. He leaned his head forward, staring at his ruined robes. "A cruel man, to make such a cut," he said aloud. Leaning back into the sand, he stared into the sky, and smirked. He should have died right then, disemboweled and stunned. And yet his viscera were no less out of place, his blood had stayed in his veins where they belonged...something had passed through his flesh, opened his skin, but it hadn't killed him. Or rather...he laughed into the sky. "It can't kill me, can it? Nothing can." The scepter snapped into his hands as he levitated effortlessly into the sky. It wasn't the scepter's magic that had saved him. No, this was a power he'd wielded his entire adult life; the blessings of Kardis. His flesh held the power she'd seen fit to gift him with, power that had saved his life.

Why would the destroyer give life? Why would she allow anyone to be saved?

There was only one answer.

"So...you think that my power will turn to death? Destruction? You have judged that my power will reap you a proper harvest of souls and hope?" He snickered. He laughed. He cackled. "TOO TRUE! TOO TRUE!" His eyes flared crimson with power as he forced the scepter to flood his body with raw magic. "Let it all die, let every living thing on Lodoss die!" He would kill it all, he would fill the kingdom of the destroyer to the brim. He'd need it full for when he claimed it.

He'd want to rule a great many subjects from atop his throne of chained goddess-flesh.

He smirked as he watched the elf run back towards him, as he watched the plume of sand and dust in the distance from the man who'd stabbed him.

"I think I'll start with HIM."

--------

I would like to tell you that there was a great battle fought, and that Alex won. Or perhaps that Alex, beaten badly, died that day, taking Wagnard to the grave with him. Barring that, I would like to tell you that for all that he couldn't save her, for all that he failed, Alex fought bravely, he put forth all that he had in the hopes of defeating Wagnard.

And yet, those all would be lies.

What use is speed if you can never get close enough to strike? What use is power when there is no force known that can pierce your opponent's defenses? What use are tactics or strategy against pure, irresistible force?

No, in the end Wagnard simply chose not to drag it out. Wave upon wave upon wave of magical force assaulted Alex, blasting him from his horse and crushing him to the ground. Bucephalus didn't survive the first strike; Wagnard shattered the stallion's rib cage and burst his heart without ever realizing it. Wagnard simply buried Alex's body under enough force to burst his heart, to stop his lungs, and took Deed away, laughing.

And Alex lay there, dying, secure in the knowledge that his short-sighted desire to cling to the old story had doomed Lodoss.

And Alex died.

But Alex did not stop fighting.

And thus, the story did not end there.

--------

Earlier, in Chapter Five of the Chronicles, Karla broke into Wort's tower. It was noted then that this did not particularly surprise Wort, as he'd always assumed that even such powerful and thorough magical defenses as he had erected could be breached by someone of sufficient power.

Karla had managed this due to several factors; her extraordinary magical power helped, though it was her experience and knowledge that tipped the scales. She simply neutralized the traps and barriers one by one until she was where she wanted to be, deep in Wort's private chambers.

The new intruder made it through simply because, despite the massive amounts of power leveled against him, it was essentially useless.

He was a demigod, a son of deities, with powers comparable to his sires, and yet none of the divine privileges or responsibilities.

Renard rather liked it that way. Godhood had its perks, but the hours were a bitch.

He didn't pay much attention to his surroundings as he strolled through Wort's study; he'd seen far stranger and more impressive sights. Rather, his attention was focused on what WASN'T there, or at least what he wasn't finding. Frowning, he focused his will deeper into the strata of reality, until he found the arcane lock he was looking for.

"Hidden between the now, the past, and the future, eh? Impressive." Frowning, he bent his will onto the interlocked paths of energy that locked the vault in a temporally unaligned space. He needed to get in, but this was good craftsmanship; he could have broken it, sure, but it seemed a shame to break it over something this trivial.

So he did it the long way, and roughly half an hour later, he smiled as the solid lead box thumped out of a place that was neither a place or a time, and yet both simultaneously.

He chose not to dwell on that too long; metaphysics always gave him a migraine.

Instead, he pulled out a set of nth-dimensional lock picks, and set to work undoing the safeguards both mechanical and arcane that kept the damned thing closed.

Another ten minutes later, he finally pulled the lid off, glaring a bit at the offending contents. "You'd better be worth the trouble," he growled under his breath as he placed Karla's circlet on his head.

--------

It might surprise you to know that Karla's circlet wasn't a particularly well-made magical artifact.

Really. I'm totally serious.

The thing is that Karla, for all her power and intelligence, suffers from both an overdose of arrogance and a surfeit of foresight. These lead to her usually having to improvise on the fly at the last minute (reference her fight with Alex and most of the war for examples). It began with her circlet in the first place; the fact that even then she succeeded is likely part of what spurred her on to continuing acting the way she did.

The circlet came about because when Kastuul first fell, she'd assumed that the rest of her life would be enough to take care of things.

Seventy years later, as she realized that she had months to live at best, she finally clued to the fact that she hadn't managed to finish the job. WHAT that job had been remained unclear, all she knew was that she couldn't rest easy. She'd managed some progress in seventy years. Mores the pity; had she failed a bit, she might have given up, and 90 of the hell that went on throughout the history of Lodoss might have been averted. Still, she had come to the conclusion that her work wasn't done, and so had spent the last bits of her life binding her soul, her spirit, and memories into the circlet.

It had taken nearly everything she'd had to do it; she barely survived long enough to place it on one of her maid's heads and slit her own throat, taking over the girl's young, healthy body.

The problem was that that was ALL the circlet could do. Sure, with her mind and magical acumen, she could do almost anything, but without a body, she was helpless. All she could do was lie there and radiate a compulsion to anyone weak enough of mind to try and take the circlet. She was completely unaware of what went on around her when she did not grace the head of a possessed victim.

As such, she had no idea what had happened, no way of explaining it when she found herself on a wooden platform, some hundred-feet square, and floating amongst the stars. "What on earth..."

"So that's what you look like eh? Was Leylia a coincidence, or do you always go for the pale, lady-vampire look in your victims?"

She spun, eyes widening at the sight of the man seated on a cloud before her. Her eyes narrowed as she groped for magic that wasn't responding. "Who are you?"

He ignored her for a moment, hopping out of his chair, circling her for a moment. "You didn't answer my question yet, why should I answer yours?" He reached out, pulling a handful of her hair out long enough to let it trail through his fingers. "This is what you think of yourself looking like; is it some sort of vestigial memory from being in Leylia's body, or is this what you looked like in real life, back when you were flesh and blood?" He paused. "Originally, I mean. Before that whole circlet mess."

She glared at him. "I said, who are you?"

He sighed. "Rude little bitch, aren't you?" He shrugged. "I was going to be polite, but you decided not to. Keep that in mind, you set the rules for our encounter." His hand closed on her hair, and he proceeded to bodily hurl her across the platform, ripping out a good chunk of hair in the process. He watched as she thunked to the ground, whimpering at the bruises. "My name is Renard. Alex is sort of related to me; I decided to watch out for him." He watched as she tried to crawl back to her feet. "That's good to know; you don't feel your host body's pain, do you?" Not bothering to wait for an answer, he strolled closer, feigning interest. "It must be odd, experiencing pain after so long."

Karla shivered. She couldn't help it; this couldn't be happening. "I'm just a soul here, I don't have flesh or blood. I can't feel pain." She screamed as Renard stepped on her back, forcing her to the ground.

"I understand that you're used to holding all the cards and being smarter than everybody. You're not. Not always, not usually, and..." he shrugged. "Well, no way to say this nicely. No fucking way you're smarter than me. So. I'll explain, and try to use little words as necessary." He lifted his foot from her back and waited for her to rise to hands and knees. At which point he hooked the tip of his foot under her stomach and half pushed half kicked her onto her back. "First off, I don't like you. I doubt that with the exception of Wort, there is ANYONE in all of Lodoss who likes you, so that shouldn't come as a big surprise." He smiled genially. "Just wanted to get that out of the way. No, onto what's going on. I broke into Wort's tower, opened the box Alex put you in, and put you on."

Karla stared at him. "That's impossible, if you're wearing me then - "

Renard shook his head. "Unfortunately for you, my mind, self-image, and sense of self are greater than yours by several orders of magnitude. In short, you can't take over my mind because even with all the cheats you made sure to enchant into your little tiara-thingy, my mind is stronger." He gestured around. "None of this is real, I'm just visualizing it because it's a convenient setting I've used before. You wanted to know why you're feeling pain?" He smiled. It was not a kind expression. "You're feeling pain because I decided that you feel pain. In this space, that's all that matters; what I decide. You retain your self-image because I allow it; if I wanted to, you could try and relate to me as a steaming crate of pig feces. If I decide it so, you'll spend the rest of your time here sucking on your own crotch because it tastes like warm apple pie." His grin turned into something worse. "Care to try me on that?"

Karla stared at him in horror. "What are you?"

Renard grinned. "I think the term is sociopath." He shrugged, still grinning that terrifying, friendly grin. "I don't actually enjoy hurting and humiliating and killing people, but I don't feel anything wrong with it either." He paused. "Well, beyond the fact that Kit nags me incessantly if I do it without a good reason. And she finds out, anyway." He sighed theatrically. "Sisters, what are you going to do?" He paused. "...crap, I lost my train of thought...oh yeah, that's right. Anyway, the point is that I can make you feel like the next thousandth of a second actually lasts a century, and you suffer through the whole time. And the only way to keep this from happening is to tell me what I want to know. So," he said as he materialized a mental chair. "How much prodding is it going to take you to talk?"

Karla forced herself not to whimper. She didn't want to know why she felt it true. If it was, if this...being in front of her was really that powerful, if he really controlled this realm completely, she probably felt it because he'd decided she would. If not...she wanted to shake her head, but she refused to allow herself to do so. This man held all the cards...no. She held one card; she knew what he wanted. The question was, what could she possibly get for that?

Taking a deep breath she rose. "I chose Leylia because she was powerful. Extremely so. She was also young enough that I could retain that power for a long period of time, and also because she was young enough that she lacked the control and wherewithal to fight against me." She managed a graceful shrug. "It was simply good fortune that she ended up with an appearance similar to what my...that is, the body I was born with."

"...Huh?"

Karla smiled inside; she was always most comfortable when others weren't. "I was answering your first question. Earlier, you said that I would decide the rules for this encounter. May I set them to be polite now?"

Renard stared at her for a moment, then dropped to the floor laughing as his chair dematerialized. Karla watched, a bit nonplussed as he lanky man took a good minute to get control of himself. "Oh, that's rich. That's wonderful." Grinning, he rose. "Amusing and not-amusing is a very important distinction for me. Congratulations, you're amusing." Bowing, he shifted the setting, materializing a new pair of comfortable arm chairs and a table sized for a café booth between them. "Certainly, let's be polite about this. Now then..."

---------

In life, Alex had been a relatively good person, at least before Lodoss had shaped him. He'd been kind, generous, frugal, conscientious...he wasn't a saint, he wasn't a goody-goody, but he'd been a pretty good guy. Granted, he'd also been a devout agnostic, a pervert, and pretty much laughed god in the face when he thought about how ridiculous a lot of the bible was. As such, he'd always wanted to go to heaven and assumed he'd end up in hell.

Lodoss had changed all that. On the one hand, he'd saved more lives than likely anyone else on the planet at the time. On the other hand, he'd gotten to that point by either ordering the death of or outright killing himself thousands, if not tens of thousands of people.

There was also the slight problem that he ran with what would probably be interpreted as demons (Achiya, Cyrus, and he suspected Buchephalus) and was probably a demon himself at this point (border-line undead committing what was probably a crime against the natural order by using the Flowing Soul).

In short, he thought it would be NICE to go to heaven, but had really given up just about any hopes of actually doing so.

"God you suck."

While annoying, the...being that had greeted him in 'death' just didn't seem sinister or sadistic enough to fit the bill of 'warden of eternal torment.' Which of course brought the obvious question.

"What the fuck is going on?"

Said being answered by throwing a rock at his head. "That's it?" he growled. "'What the fuck is going on?' You show up in the ass-end of nowhere with ONE GUY complaining at you, and all you can ask is what the fuck is going on?" He snorted disdainfully. "See, that's what I meant. THAT is why you suck so much." He dodged a moment later as Alex launched a knife (or some spiritual representation thereof...or something) at his head.

"What's the problem with the question?" Alex asked, glaring at his...new acquaintance. "I died, and ended up in what looks like western Kansas except it's not some ungodly hot dusty cattle-shit-smelling hell-hole, and the only person here looks like he escaped from a shonen-ai doujinshi and is telling me that I suck." He paused. "You know, considering what I just said, I feel obligated to mention that no, I'm not gay, so if the whole 'god you suck' thing is a come-on, you're going to be sorely disappointed."

The Other glared right back at him. "Hey, it wasn't MY idea to end up as some sort of bishonen furry you asshole. And this is YOUR soul, so I think the gay-worries are something YOU need to worry about, not me."

"...my soul is prairie?"

The Other threw another rock at him.

It stopped short about a foot from Alex, hovering in midair. Prompting the Other to stare at the sight for a moment, blink owlishly, and utter "oh fuck."

Alex stared at the rock that apparently couldn't hurt him. "...okay, I'm still confused." He turned to regard the Other. "You said this is my soul...is this one of those things where my consciousness constructed some sort of terrain to represent what I don't understand, or some psychological crap like that?"

The other growled irritably as he sat down on the rock that rose out of the ground behind him. "Don't look at me, I don't get it either. Near as I can tell, this," he gestured around at the prairie landscape, "is supposed to represent the part of you that is still buried in the unconscious. It's the 90 of your brain you don't use, or something like that. You," he pointed again, "are the part that controls it, the conscious part."

Alex was silent as he digested that for a moment. "Okay, so what's that make you?"

The Other shrugged tiredly. "Like I said, I'm not sure. I THINK that I'm some aspect of your unconscious that got woken up by something. I'm still a part of you, and I think I'm still separate from the part of you that goes about day-to-day...stuff..." he shook his head. "Anyway, all I know is that I've been stuck here for a while, and it sucks. Because your life has sucked."

Alex rolled his eyes. "Great, you're the angsty emo part of me." He paused. "Though I suppose it's good to know that that's separate from my main consciousness."

The Other threw another rock; this time it didn't even continue moving once his hand let go. He growled. "Great, you're gaining greater control of the soul-scape. Fucking Cyrus. He never should have taught you that thing."

"Flowing Soul?" Alex nodded absently. "So...wait a sec, those rocks won't hit me in my 'soul-scape' as you called it." He thought about asking, but decided against it; this thing seemed more interested in heckling him than actively helping. "Okay, if normal soul-scape is supposed to be the part I can't consciously control, then controlling it now this way probably shouldn't be possible." He looked down at some of the pebbles dotting the terrain. He decided against any levitating; he wanted to try something a bit more ambitious.

The Other's eyes widened abruptly as he felt something start shifting. "WHAT THE FUCK?!" He stared down at 'his' suddenly growing chest. "...oh my god...you..." He/she froze as 'she' now considered the way 'her' voice sounded. "...you fucking unbelievable bastard..."

Alex grinned. "Payback's a bitch. Now, you are too."

"CHANGE ME BACK YOU GOAT-FUCKING SHIT HEAP!!!" The Other paused. Looked back down. Decided that the lack of disturbing extra anatomy (even if they would have been very nice on a REAL female) in the chest wasn't reassuring enough, proceeded to yank open it's pants, heaving a sigh of relief as the sight of ample manhood met his (at least for now) eyes.

Alex frowned thoughtfully. "Huh...soon as I stop concentrating, you go back to normal." Looking around, he considered the pretty (if boring) endless grass. "So let's see what happens when..."

The Other looked at him warily; experimenting seemed to be a bad thing for him when the Real decided to experiment.

He ended up falling as the earth below their feet started shifting, opening up a deep, wide trench in the ground as dirt seemed to fall down into nothing, revealing smooth, massive boulders. "What the hell are you doing..." he trailed off as water began trickling, then rushing down the trench. "...why a river?"

Alex shrugged. He wasn't thinking about it staying there anymore, but it stayed. Which meant that while the Other...he frowned. "I just realized how stupid this is. What's your name?"

The Other (who will never again be called such in this fic) blinked, looking up. "Huh? Oh, Itsaqa."

Alex stared. Gift of tongues apparently extended to etymology. "...Coyote-man?"

Itsaqa shrugged. "Hey, like I said, it's your soul." He frowned. "As long as we're being border-line polite, how about answering my question; why a river?"

Alex shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea." He looked around. "Like I said, this place reminds me a lot of western Kansas; we had to drive through it a lot when we were on road trips, and no matter how beautiful it seems, it's still boring as hell. Water means life, versatility, growth...water means variety."

Itsaqa was quiet while Alex just stood there, staring around the slowly flowering soul-scape. He hadn't told Alex the truth about what he was; he was Itsaqa, and regardless of whether or not he was a part of this place, regardless of how little time he'd been awake, he was of himself. And he couldn't help but wonder if Alex realized the implications of the fact that he was forging the land of his soul under nothing but force of will.

Alex shook his head dazedly; he'd felt the landscape changing. It was weird; it was like he knew the shapes it should take, but hadn't ever been able to pay attention to where it was. He could feel parts of the formerly uniform soul-scape shifting; some parts were rising, presumably (and eventually) into mountains. He could feel hills and valleys grinding themselves away, he could feel rivers and streams carving themselves into the land, ponds and lakes and pools forming where confluences met. He could feel plants flowering and withering, he could feel tree roots digging into the soil turning prairie into dark forests, reeds spreading in what would shortly be marshes and wetlands...

And he could tell now that just beyond the reach of his soul's eyes, the land gave way into crags and beaches and deserts, and further still falling into oceans too deep for him to fathom.

Shaking his head, he turned back to regard Itsaqa. "What's going on?"

Itsaqa ignored him for a moment, his eyes wide as he took in the new growth. "...is that marijuana?"

Alex started; it wasn't. "No, that's the weird stuff the Carals dry and smoke. The stuff that Deed and Chiffon got stoned on just before they started frenching..." his voice trailed off. A slow, goofy grin started spreading over his face.

This time, the thrown rock made contact.

Itsaqa shook his head. "Perv." It was nice to see that some of what he'd been had bled over into the new incarnation. Namely, Alex. "Look, this is great and all, getting something interesting here, but shouldn't you be leaving?"

Alex growled under his breath. The damned furry had chosen a sharp rock that time; he was bleeding (and after the last four months, it was REALLY weird feeling pain again). "Leave what? I died, remember?"

Itsaqa waved that aside as though it couldn't have mattered; he was more interested in getting some of that grass dry enough to smoke. "You died four months ago. Didn't let it bother you last time. Why should this time be any different?"

Alex rolled his eyes. "Maybe because my chest is caved in and my heart is so much pate?"

Itsaqa scoffed. "Details. You're here now because you gave up, because you let that little elf bitch convince you that you screwed up, and that everything is your fault..." his voice trailed off as he realized that he'd somehow gotten entombed in rock. Rock which was getting very tight.

Alex glared at him coldly. It was worth noting that the soul-scape around him, what had once been golden tall-grass was now blackened and singed for almost fifty feet around him. "I'm sorry, what did you just call her?"

Itsaqa glared at him; Alex controlled this world, so it was really about all he COULD do. "Oh come on, you think about her as a bitch all the time and you know it. The fact that she's a really hot, cute bitch who you're in love with doesn't change the fact that she's a bitch." He shrugged. "And what of it; she's a female, ergo she's a bitch. They all are, it's just a question of when and how much."

Alex stared at him for a long moment. "...I'm starting to consider the possibility that you're the part of me that would get me killed by the women around me if I ever let it out."

Itsaqa managed to shrug; the rock was loosening a bit. "No, I'm a lot more than that. Probably a sort of 'what-if' persona or something from an Alternate Universe." He looked down. "Mind letting me go?"

Alex sighed, letting the rock crumble. Noticing the effect his mood had just had on the terrain, he let it go back to normal. "Okay, so you're saying that I can return to my body?"

Itsaqa nodded as he started hunting for a big, thin leaf. "Far as I can tell, you're still in your body, you just aren't using it."

Alex palmed his face. "Ooookay, if you say so. Tell me this then; how am I supposed to use my body when it's irreparably dead, at least biologically?"

Itsaqa shrugged; he'd found what he needed, and began crumbling dried grasses onto it. "Dead is more a state of mind than an actual state of body. At least for us. Or me. Or you. Or whatever pronoun should be used."

"Actually, I'm more worried about the fact that I'm going to start decomposing."

Itsaqa paused in the rolling of his impromptu joint. "...Oh yeah. That IS sort of a problem." He thought about it for a while. "Well, look at it this way. You used the Flowing Soul to move as sort of a memory right? There wasn't anything physical moving, so you just sort of forced your body into going through the actions as you pictured them, right?" Alex nodded. Itsaqa grinned. "So, just do the same thing this time. FORCE your body to stay in its proper state. You remember what it's supposed to look and feel like, so just focus on that too."

"Oh, THAT'S a lot of help. 'Just think it, and it'll be so.' What the hell do you think this is, a self-help infomercial or something?"

Itsaqa was spared the need to answer as Alex abruptly expanded. It was odd to look at; it was as though he went intangible, and then abruptly just exploded in every direction, as though he were integrating into the area.

In a way, he was.

Itsaqa sighed as he lit the joint, praying that Alex's belief in the effects was strong enough to give him a decent buzz. He'd had to spend the last six months watching Alex go through mistakes he remembered all too well.

Mistakes that were technically Alex's in a past life.

--------

"GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HIM!"

Tahmores made a show of struggling a bit as the two muscular guards in turbans dragged him off. If he'd had any say in the matter, he wouldn't have been here at all. Still, he hadn't, and frankly the idea of Renard finding out that he'd ran off without doing his job frightened him a hell of a lot more than these humans could ever manage.

He watched idly, some unconscious part of him taking control of his mouth to spit vitriol at his 'captors' as he admired the half-elf's chest through the thin shirt she wore. The priestess was also probably pretty hot, but it was hard to tell through the robes.

Then Alex gasped.

He'd been laid on his back, Etoh trying to do his best to make him physically presentable for his state funeral when Tahmores had arrived. He'd been alternately staring at Alex's body after Tahmores had somehow plunged his hand into Alex's chest and yanked _something_ without actually touching his flesh.

It had taken a moment, but Alex had reacted by inhaling a massive amount of air, enough so that there was an actual ripple of clothing from the force of rushing air as his back contracted, his head and heels doing their best to meet behind him.

'Gasped' might be a bit too mild a word, under the circumstances.

They all stared as Alex collapsed back onto the bier. It was noticed that despite the massive amount of air that he'd just inhaled and subsequently released, his chest had stopped moving. His eyes remained open, staring blankly towards the ceiling. Minutes went by as they stared, and yet he remained unblinking, unmoving...unbreathing...

Tahmores took the opportunity to start trying to sneak away.

Cyrus cawed.

And Alex sat up. His once-ruined chest was whole, if unhealthily pale, the gash in his left hand from the dagger-wound he'd given himself scarred but whole. Still not blinking, he turned towards Tahmores.

And Tahmores silently whimpered.

Alex was grinning, a dazed, not-all-there grin, a grin that belonged on the empty face of a skeleton more than a human. A grin that he'd seen on Renard's face when he was feeling vindictive.

Had it not been for surprise on his part and fear on Tahmores's, Alex would never have managed to tackle the smaller male. He uncoiled like a striking snake, and brutally crushed his would-be healer against the stone walls, knocking aside the conical rice-farmer hat from his head in the process, revealing a pair of large, furry, triangular ears.

Alex's lungs inflated slowly; it took some time for him to speak. "Why don't those ears surprise me?" Standing, he dragged Tahmores to his feet, and proceeded to bodily slam him into the wall again. Another delayed breath. "So. Care to tell me what you're here for?" He took a deep breathe, his eyes narrowing as he played a hunch. "What's so special about Itsaqa?"

It's been said before, but we'll say it again. Whatever Tahmores, and Renard, and presumably Kit are, they don't have blood in the conventional sense. So how they can blush or pale is questionable.

Still, he managed. "...oh crap." Managing a bit of a nervous, high-pitched giggle, Tahmores started adjusting his feet under him to stand without the hands currently throttling him. "So, you know about him?"

"I AM him," Alex growled after a moment.

Tahmores swallowed. "Uh...if you're him, then I don't need to explain anything, do I? I mean, you'd already know..."

Alex forced another deep breath. WHY it was so hard to talk would have to be solved later. "No, I don't know about Itsaqa. I just met him a second ago, and know that he and I are the same guy somehow. So how about you explain to me who Itsaqa is. Who YOU are. And WHY I seem to be cursed to encounter coyotes everywhere." A pause. "I assume that you're a coyote."

Tahmores nodded slowly. "Half, actually." He was silent for a while; his eyes darted to the various guards and kings (well, technically only one king) and wizards and everything, hoping that someone was going to make a move. That plan died a miserable death as it became clear that they were all either too scared or in too deep of shock to do much of anything. And so, he plastered a sickly little grin on his face and started talking. "Uh...would you mind setting me down first? I talk better without being throttled."

Alex's response was to spin Tahmores around, clench his neck in a head-lock, and dragged him back to the bed. He then flung the 'coyote' to the bed and stood on his chest. "I'm tired of not knowing what's going on. I don't have any particular reason to trust you. And judging from the fact that you were about to dive out of a sixty-foot high window, I'm assuming that running away is something you're particularly skilled at. So. How about you tell me what I want to know, and THEN I let you make yourself comfortable?"

"Alex?" Kashue's eyes narrowed as the...thing that looked like his country's recent savior looked back at him. He'd seen Alex angry, that wasn't anything new. He'd seen red-eye Alex, and even gold-eye Alex a few times, and knew what to expect. Now he was getting to see a version of Alex whose eyes had been replaced by pools of dark blue.

He wasn't entirely sure what to expect. But that didn't change too much at the moment. "Would you mind explaining what's going on? Chiffon and Wort have collectively told us a great many things that I would have appreciated knowing earlier, and now you wake up after dying. So would you be so kind as to tell me what in God's name is going on here?"

Alex shrugged as a new breath rasped its way into his lungs. "I'll explain my part after HE explains," was all he said as he ground his foot against Tahmores' chest.

Tahmores sighed. He'd been hoping that nerve-dead as Alex was, he wouldn't notice him trying to crawl out from underfoot. No such luck. "Alright, quick version of what Itsaqa is. A long time ago there were two gods who had nothing to do with Lodoss or Alecrast or Forceria or anything that you guys would have heard about. One of them called herself O-hime, the Senbi no Kitsune. The other one was named Hara (1), but most people called him Old Man Koyote." Tahmores swallowed a bit as Alex's eyebrow started twitching; something told him to speed it up. "Anyway, neither is willing to explain how or why, but they had two kids, a girl and a boy...sort of...well, as male and female as demigods get. Anyway, after a few thousand years of puttering around, they got bored and lonely. Mostly lonely, because even if they were hornballs, they weren't into incest but still wanted their own kind."

"This affects me how?" Alex bit out.

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there, and really, I'm leaving a lot of the details out. So anyway, these two get bored and lonely, when they meet a human for the first time. And he looks sort of like them, just without the ears and tails and in the guy's case, a 14-inch plus trouser snake. And they get to know him, and like him enough that they decide to keep him around. Only problem is that as they hang out with him, he clues them into mortality and the fact that he won't be around for more than sixty or seventy more years, even if he's lucky, and he's gonna get weaker and wrinklier as time goes by. So these two decide that as much fun as they can have in that much time, it would be better if they could keep him around forever. So using their powers, they transfer a good-sized chunk of their powers into him, transforming him into something new, something a LOT like them but without divinity."

"They changed his name after that to Itsaqa."

Slayn coughed politely. Sure it was weird, but he was getting used to weird. And Alex wasn't the only one who was sick of being in the dark. "Excuse me, but what does this have to do with anything? Who is Itsaqa, and more importantly, why does he matter? We have slightly more pressing concerns, and not a great deal of time to prepare for them."

Alex ignored Slayn. He also ignored the agreeing murmurs; he needed to know a bit more. "So why all this? Why did I get sent to Lodoss, why the war, why this version? What the fuck does me being some sort of reincarnated furry have to do with the present?"

Tahmores shrugged slightly, no mean feat considering how hard he was being pressed into the straw mattress. "It doesn't. I don't know how you ended up here; I didn't do it, we didn't do it, and Renard certainly didn't do it." He let out a squawk as Alex's foot depressed about three inches.

"Renard...is part of this?"

Tahmores winced. Bad move on his part; he'd assumed that if Alex knew about Itsaqa, he knew about Renard. Really bad move actually, seeing as how he'd needed to tell him in the first place. "Renard was the boy, the one who helped MAKE Itsaqa. Him and Kit." He sighed in relief as the pressure relieved itself. Sitting up, he watched Alex step back worldlessly. He hesitated for a moment; he didn't really need to tell him any more, but...he felt sorry for him. Even if he HAD been threatening his life just a moment ago, he could understand. And there was one last thing he had to say anyway; no reason not to throw him a bone. "Look, about Itsaqa. I don't know the whole story; no one ever talks about it. Kit and Renard know, but whenever someone mentions it around her, she starts crying and Renard..." he winced. "Anyway, this is the important part. Kit and Renard didn't really know what they were doing when they created Itsaqa. They screwed something up in him, and he didn't last very long. But before he commit suicide, he brought back nine other people who he'd transformed into weaker, more stable versions of himself...or at least his new race. That's why he matters to us. He's...well, he's sort of our version of Adam."

"Yeah, look what happened to Adam in the long-run," Alex muttered. Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair. Or thought about it; unconscious gestures weren't working right now. On the one hand, it did sort of explain why he'd gotten so Coyote-happy here; this place seemed to bring out the screwed-up in you. Besides which, having just met Itsaqa, he was perhaps a bit more open to the idea.

Sure, it could have been an elaborate ruse and deception. The only problem was that if it was, it would have had to have started as part of him ending up here, and nothing prior to showing up in Lodoss he'd ever done was impressive enough to warrant someone's attention.

Unless it was true in the first place.

He tried to sigh again. He was purposely distracting himself now; he had work to do, and everything they'd told him would be good to ponder in the afterlife. For now... "Thanks."

Tahmores shrugged as he leapt for the window. "No biggie. Renard would have force-fed me that hat if I hadn't told you." He paused at the sill. "Oh, and speaking of things to tell, he has a message for you sort of from Karla."

Alex's head snapped around. "WHAT?!"

Tahmores raised his hands. "Don't worry, he just talked with her in the astral plane or whatever; she's still locked up. Anyway, he wanted to let you know two things. One, the ritual to resurrect Kardis requires the sacrifice of a virgin immortal, so they won't do anything like that to Deed. Second, they'll try to resurrect her thirteen days after the Summer Solstice, on the first night of the New Moon." With that he leapt.

Alex stared at the space where Tahmores had just been. The last thing he needed... "…what, just that simple?" Shaking his head, he turned back...

...to find nearly two dozen people staring at him, most of them blankly, the ones close to him accusingly. "What?"

Of all people, it was Leylia who chose to be proactive. By stepping close enough to grab him by the ear and tried to haul him into the center. Emphasis on TRIED. "Alex? Please explain. Everything. NOW."

Alex batted her hand aside. "Short version? I got dumped on Lodoss three months ago – "

"We KNOW all that," Kashue bit out. "Frankly, I want to know why you didn't think to tell us that the end of our world was just around the corner."

Alex didn't wince; if he'd had involuntary facial movement, he would have though. Mentioning that only reminded him that this was largely his fault for not stopping it when he could have, or should have. He didn't let THEM know that though. "And what should I have done? Show up at each of your castles in the middle of a war, start throwing insane predictions around and end by telling you that at some unclear point in the near future Kardis, the dead goddess of madness and destruction was going to wake up and waste us all at the behest of Wagnard the Red Priest?" He shook his head. "Come on, don't be idiots. You would have locked me up or sent me to the priests who treat madmen."

Silence greeted that. No one was buying it (regardless of how accurate the previous statement was). Finally, Alex just sighed and turned to get his things. "Fuck it. I have work to do."

"As do we," Kashue bit out. "Work that SHOULD have begun several months ago. Work that could have begun, had you been honest with us."

Alex rolled his eyes as he started rummaging through his knapsack. "Kashue, you wouldn't have done anything if I HAD told you. That's the reality of the situation. Deal with it."

"Oh?" Kashue asked, ignoring Etoh's attempts to garner attention. "And pray tell, what are you going to do? If that fox-thing's words are to be trusted, we have less than two months to muster our armies, supply them, arm them, and somehow cut our way through all of Marmo, a conquest that we've wanted to perform for the last three centuries and couldn't. A tall order for a king, or a large group of kings. What's one lone man supposed to do?"

Alex snorted. "What makes you think I'm doing this alone? I've spent the last four months making preparations for this battle, including setting the groundwork for an army, procuring arms, and mustering a fleet capable of GETTING them all to Marmo in time." He frowned. "That reminds me, payment is coming due. I need to head back to the mountain to give the Carals permission."

Silence reigned for a moment, broken only by the sound of parchment rolls hitting the bed. Then, bedlam.

"WHAT?!"

"Alex, where in god's name did you find an army?!"

"FOUR MONTHS?! FOUR MONTHS WITHOUT TELLING US?!"

"SHUT UP!"

Etoh's bellow shocked them into silence.

Panting slightly, the newly-ordained priest stalked over to his friend. "Alex, I appreciate what you're trying to do. I understand that you want to save Lodoss, and that time is of the essence. But there is one small, VERY important detail you're going to need to factor into your plans. Namely..." he took a deep breathe, "...namely the fact that you're still dead."

Silence.

Leylia stared between the two. "What are you talking about?"

Etoh just stared Alex down.

Alex met his gaze, and dropped his first as he picked out a number of parchments. "I know I'm dead. Even with the flowing soul, I could still feel my heartbeat. I didn't need to exert myself to breathe." He managed a small grin. "That explains why it's so hard to talk; I have to consciously force air into my lungs first. They aren't doing that on their own anymore."

Wort stepped forward. "Alex, you are the undead. You are a part of the domain of death now, the destroyed. That gives Kardis a hold over you, the same hold she has on all the dead of Lodoss. You cannot face her and win."

Shrugging on his clothes, Alex smirked. "All the dead of Lodoss huh? Well isn't that lucky that I'm not from Lodoss?"

Wort was silent. Then, "perhaps. And perhaps that will make it even easier?"

Alex ignored him this time. Collecting his things, he turned to leave. He felt their gazes on his back; people who cared, people who wanted to help, who wanted to know...people he ignored and turned his back on. They could help in some ways, but he chose to ignore it. He was ready for whatever lay ahead, and had made his peace with it.

Now it was time for the details.

He paused at the doorway. "Oh, Wort? You probably know; explain to Kashue the laws of dragon-kind regarding a dragon-slayer's right to claim his opponent's treasure, and the penalties for doing so if you WEREN'T the slayer, would you?"

Then he was gone.

To be Continued...

Author's Notes: Sorry this took so long. If nothing else, hey, at least it's a LONG update? Anyway, two chapters left and an epilogue, then it's on to book two.

See you then.

(1) – I don't know of any names for Old Man Koyote; Hara is short for harabuhji, the Korean for Grandfather. O-hime likewise doesn't have a name, but I found a sight that suggested the kitsune were imported from India along with a goddess who was a fox with a thousand tales (hence, senbi (thousand tails) no Kitsune (fox)). Whether these two are real or accurate doesn't matter, they're here for the story's sake. Mainly for the later stories, and not so much Lodoss; this is pretty much just foreshadowing.


	16. Chapter 15: Prelude to a Crusade

_**Chronicles of Murphy**_

_**Book One: Book of the Accursed**_

**Disclaimer:** There was actually a terrible mix-up. Due to clerical error, and despite the problems of age, time-warp, and the fact that this is about fifteen years belated, the truth is that I actually wrote Record of the Lodoss War in the first place. So I'm really technically the owner. So really, there's nothing to disclaim, because it's my property to do with whatever I want.

Really. I'm being totally serious.

_**Chapter Fifteen**_

Prelude to a Crusade

"Alex, wait."

He paused at the exit of the castle. He should have taken a deep breath to center himself, to calm down. The only problem was that was more effort than was worth it. He settled for simply turning to face Etoh.

He was breathing hard; Alex had been gone for a few minutes with nothing but largely pointless arguing going on before Etoh had thrown his hands up, informed everyone present they weren't solving anything and left. He'd been forced to run to catch Alex. "Why are you doing this? Why are you just up and leaving?"

Alex sighed. "Because I don't have any time for anything else. I'm not a king, so I can't make alliances or anything. Kashue's going to have his hands full trying to get this thing arranged, and he's going to do it his way, not mine. It's going to be the same for Kannon, Fahn, and Jester." He smiled thinly. "Kadamos would probably have me drowned in holy water if I tried to enter Alan now, so he's out too. I can try to get their help, but it's going to take hours to get everything straightened out before any of that can happen, and I just don't have the time." He sighed then shrugged as nonchalantly as he could manage. It was harder than he would have expected. "I'm sorry I have to leave like this, but I can't afford to waste any time."

He reeled for a moment; there was no pain, but still, he never would have thought Etoh would cold-cock him.

Etoh shook his hand out lightly; that had hurt more than he'd expected. "Are you done telling me lies?" He waited for Alex to answer, but after it became clear that he wasn't going to, he simply kept going. "I'm not interested in logistics or strategy. I don't care what you planned, or what you said or didn't. All I want to know is why you're just going to walk away from the people who care about you."

Alex just stared. He hadn't seen Etoh in months, and now this. It was easy to underestimate that boyish face. Still, he deserved an answer. "I'm not going to survive this campaign. I'm physically dead; the only thing keeping me going is the fact that I have unfinished business. Once that's done..." he shrugged. "Etoh, that's it. I'm out. I'm shuffling loose the mortal coil." His complacent expression faded. "This was good-bye."

After that last hit, he was a bit wary of Etoh; he managed to dodge the next punch.

Etoh glared at him. "That's it? That's the best you can come up with?" He snorted; it was an odd sound to hear from him. "Marmo is still afraid of you after what happened in the Valley. You have the ears of kings because you're supposed to be some sort of genius, and THAT was the best you can come up with? We're your FRIENDS," he emphasized, "and friends don't just run away from each other. You didn't tell us about Kardis, and while this is huge, I can't honestly be upset with you for that."

Alex blinked. "You're not upset that I didn't bother to tell you about the imminent end of existence as we know it?"

Etoh shrugged. "You were right up there; no one would have believed it." He had a half-embarrassed grin on his face. "To tell the truth, I'm still not sure I believe it. I mean, something this big and not a word from Pharis to his faithful?" He froze as he realized what he'd implied. "Not that Pharis would give ME anything special, but someone would have known. I mean, Neese didn't hear anything, neither did Leylia, but you'd think one of them would have."

"You're babbling," Alex interjected.

Etoh flushed. "Sorry." Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he continued. "The point is that telling us wouldn't have made any difference. No one would EVER have believed it, because no one wants to believe that Kardis could wake up. Now..." he sighed. "Regardless of what the rest of the godhood has said, or hasn't, there's too much evidence of something wrong on Marmo to discount what we heard. Well, that and when you hear it from Wort himself, you tend to believe it. So." He took a deep breath. "First, I expect you to go up there and apologize to everyone for what happened. We're all a bit out of sorts, and frankly, I don't think that you could have built an army big or strong enough to cut its way through all of Marmo in four months. You're going to need all the help you can get. Then..." he smiled. "What can we do?"

Alex was silent for a long time. He could do apologies; that wasn't the issue. Would they accept it? ...Maybe. Again, not really what he was wondering. "Etoh, what happened to you? Why are you this nice a guy? Hell, you're nicer than I am, and I used to be REALLY nice." He paused. That 'used to be' was actually kind of sad, all things considered.

Etoh just smiled. "Pharis preaches righteousness, justice, law, and devotion. Some of the priests differ, but I always thought that to be righteous means to know what is unalterably right, and to support that whole-heartedly." He shrugged. "Saving one of my friends, saving Lodoss, opposing Kardis..." he laughed. "These are all things that Pharis would support. And if they aren't, then perhaps it's not Pharis who my prayers reach."

Alex managed a chuckle. A blasphemous, borderline heretical Etoh. It somehow felt right for this Lodoss. "Alright, I'll apologize, but that's it. There really isn't that much that needs to be done, but it needs to be done NOW. I'll have to be quick." He sighed. "I DO owe them an apology, that much is clear."

"Accepted."

Alex started. Well, tried to. Reflexes were going to take some time to deal with. He settled for looking up in surprise. Slayn, Leylia, Chiffon... "Kashue?"

The desert king sighed. "I AM a king you know. It wouldn't kill you to show the proper respect." He winced at his word choice a moment later.

Alex shrugged. "Sorry." He looked around. Leylia looked contrite, Slayn looked...well, Slayn...ish...and Chiffon just looked sad and withdrawn. He sighed. "Look, I really am sorry about everything. I've been under a lot of stress lately, and it's gotten worse in the last few days." Kashue snorted, and Alex grinned. "Yes, I realize that's something of an understatement, but it's true. So. I deeply apologize for being such a colossal asshole a few minutes ago, and ask that you forgive me." He bowed, and somehow despite his sarcastic apology, sincerity showed through.

Kashue sighed. "Alex, I need to muster Flaim. I can't afford to take every soldier I have, regardless of whether or not I should, but even then it's going to take weeks to issue the orders, get the supplies we'll need, and march to Kannon or Roid to set sail. I'm not going to be much help, I'm afraid."

Alex nodded. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I wasn't expecting much help from you in that regards." He shrugged. "That's why I started organizing an army all those months ago. Still, I do have one request. If you can manage it, sail from Kannon. I'd appreciate you being there to help me finalize plans and strategy."

Kashue nodded. "Agreed. Most of the men who I'd be mustering will be medium and heavy cavalry anyway; they can cover the distance overland as easily as they can by sea." He frowned. "What are your resources?"

Alex sighed. "That's the problem. I don't know exactly how many recruits and trained militia to expect. I couldn't openly start building an army across Lodoss without causing some serious strain, so I had to use the coyotes to set up training programs for individual villages." He shook his head helplessly. "I told them to train every man who could learn, and to bring everyone they could south into Kannon if they heard anything about Shooting Star, but still..."

Kashue's eyes widened. "Wait, you knew Shooting Star was going to wake up from the get go?"

Alex nodded. "I knew that Wagnard would go after the scepter sooner or later, I just didn't know when."

Kashue bit back a retort; it was really the same as the whole closed-lips policy regarding Kardis. He never would have believed it. Sighing, he shook his head. "So your 'army' is nothing but a group of untried peasants, unarmed and both trained by and led by relatively inexperienced militia?"

Alex smirked. "Hardly. First, I managed to get into contact with an arms supplier and contract out a long-term agreement for high-quality arms and armor. They'll be delivered to Kannon soon. Secondly..." he grinned nastily. "I made some friends right from the start. I hadn't planned on it, but they liked me enough to promise to help when the time came."

Kashue frowned. "Who?"

"The Carals and the Lusitanians."

Kashue's eyes bulged. "YOU...you're going to let those crazy barbarians loose on Marmo?" He managed a hollow laugh. "Good gods, I never thought I'd pity those poor bastards."

"The Carals or the Lusitanians?"

"Both."

Leylia frowned. "Um, excuse me, but who are the Lusitanians? Or the Carals for that matter?"

Chiffon chose to answer. "When we first left Tarba, Alex wanted to visit the Caraline Grasses. We met the Carals there; they're a society of herders and hunters who live in the grasses."

"Who happen to ride eight-foot-tall predatory birds," Kashue added. Leylia's eyes widened. Seeing that, Kashue laughed mirthlessly. "Their mounts are probably as dangerous as they are. Considering how blood-crazy the average Caral is in a fight, that's saying something about both of them." He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Frankly, it's the Lusitanians who worry me more though." Seeing the questioning looks, he elaborated. "The Lusitanians are horse-nomads living on equal parts of the Caraline Grass's northern border and Flaim's southern. They claim no lands of their own, just roam and hunt and gather wherever seems to best at the time. My desert tribes and the Carals have both been trying to wipe them out for hundreds of years, and neither has managed."

Leylia's eyes bulged. She spun on Alex. "How on earth did you manage to get those people to work for you? Or together, for that matter?"

Alex shrugged. "Karl actually did most of the work. You know that he claimed some land east of Flaim, right?" Judging from the dumbfounded looks, they didn't. "Well anyway, he planned on it just being a sort of refugee camp for some people we helped out on the way to the grasses, but since he started it on good land, it stayed. And the people expected so much from him, they kept keeping him there with a new problem until he ended up the leader there." He smiled at the looks; Karl had surprised him too. "Anyway, the reason why such good land had been left alone was because no one wanted to deal with the neighbors; Carals to the southeast, Lusitanians to the northeast, coastal raiding parties on the seas to the north, bandits on the trade routes to the southeast...it was a no-man's land. Karl originally just wanted to entrench the place, but after we came back and he found out we were in good standing with the Carals, he decided to strike a deal with them."

"A deal," Kashue said flatly.

Alex shrugged. "It's kind of complicated, but he managed to get them to agree to stop trying to wipe each other out, at least when they were in his place. HOW, I don't know, but he did. Anyway, once they had that much of a common ground, they were able to start developing something like a grudging respect. They still hate each other, and still fight, but now it's a matter of person against person rather than race against race."

Kashue shook his head. "Trusting them is a BAD idea, Alex. You need mutual trust to win a war, and they don't have it. They might be willing to fight, but they won't take orders."

Alex's reply oddly enough was accompanied by a smile. "Let me worry about that. I think I can manage them both." He looked around, his smile fading. "Just head south into Kannon if you can; it would help to apprise you of what I have planned, and even if you decide to go your own way, it would still be easier to do this if we were at least not working to cross purposes. I have to go."

"Where?" Slayn asked. "You said that you had this planned, that they were already moving on their own." His eyes narrowed. "Who do you have in reserve?"

"No one. But I need to head back to Fire Dragon Mountain, and without Bucephalus, it's going to take a while." His face fell; he could still remember the sickening noise of Bucephalus's death.

Cyrus shifted uncomfortably. _Er, about that..._

"Why Fire Dragon Mountain?" Kashue frowned. "Come to think of it, you said something about the law of dragons. Wort didn't give any explanation before he left; what's that have to do with anything?"

Alex growled. "Goddamnit Wort, would it kill you to help a LITTLE bit?" Shaking his head, he tried to recall it all. "Okay, this is a bit confusing, but bear with me, I'll get there. You know that dragons are creatures of magic, right?" Everyone nodded; it was kind of obvious. "Okay. Probably not known per se, but it's fairly obvious that an Ancient Dragon's magic would be quite a bit stronger than any other dragon's. Still with me?" Looks were turning impatient; he winced. He didn't want to patronize them, but it had to be said. "So, all that magic energy being burned constantly...what happens to it?" It was a rhetorical question; he just kept going. "A dragon's hoard absorbs it over time, like a batter...oh yeah, you don't have those. Um...sort of like a cistern holds rain water for later. Dragons can draw back on that energy if they need it, in case of say a famine, or if they need to cast some sort of huge spell as an emergency, or to help speed up their recovery if they're seriously injured. Now, here's the big question; what happens to that magic when the dragon dies?"

This time he managed to get blank looks; it WAS esoteric knowledge after all. Chiffon frowned. "The laws of magic state that without some sort of focus holding it, magical energy would disperse over time normally."

"Normally, yes. Ancient Dragons aren't normal, unfortunately. What ends up happening is that most of the energy is dispersed all at once, channeled right into the dragon's now-dead soul, empowering it for the next life. Some of that energy however remains behind, binding the gold to the laws of dragonkind."

"You keep talking about laws of dragon-kind," Kashue growled. "Do dragons even HAVE laws? I know that Bramd and Mycen make laws, and follow the laws of the gods, but I've never heard of dragons having laws of their own."

Slayn winced. Unfortunately, he winced where Etoh and Leylia could see him; they both turned to him curiously. Which prompted Chiffon, Alex, and Kashue to look at him as well. Seeing the prompting look in Alex's eyes, he sighed. "Your majesty, the gods, and the very earth beneath our feet predate the Ancient Dragons. Those are perhaps the only things in all the world older than these great creatures. They were shaped in part by the gods, but only in part; the Ancients were as much a product of the forces of the world as the laws of nature and magic themselves." He shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know the laws, but even I know they exist, and that they cannot be broken." He frowned. "What those laws have to say about hoards, I don't know. Nor," he added pointedly, "do I understand why YOU know them."

Alex shrugged. "I learned of it at least in part by accident. I visited Moss, looking for any lore about dragon-slaying, and managed to find something out. The law doesn't have anything to do with hoards normally, only when you're the one who killed it. Normally when a dragon dies, the gold or whatever becomes cursed, guarded by the lingering magic of the dragon itself. Anyone who takes it gets the worst luck imaginable, usually fatally so. But if you kill the dragon yourself, then you have a right to the treasure, and as a result you can dispel the curse selectively."

Kashue stared at him hard for a moment. He remembered Shooting Star's hoard; a mountain of gold, platinum, silver jewels, art, and magic nearly a hundred feet high and over three hundred feet around. "Are you telling me that you're laying claim to Shooting Star's ENTIRE hoard?"

Alex quirked an eyebrow. "As I recall, I was the one who killed it. Just because you were there doesn't mean you can do it too you know." He shrugged. "Relax, I don't want all of it. I'll uncurse a large portion of it for Flaim, but I need it, and fast."

"For what?"

Alex snorted. "How the hell am I supposed to pay for an army and all the equipment otherwise? What, you think the people I hired are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts? I need to pay Karl too; he's taken a LOT on for me on credit. I need to square that away." Hefting his pack, he turned to leave. "Look, we can keep talking, but that's not really important. You have a lot to do, and so do I. So let's just get as much done as we can, alright?"

Kashue sighed, rubbing his temples with one hand. He hated not knowing what he was getting himself into, but he was an experienced ruler and commander. He could improvise. He just acknowledged it as a poor option. "Go. You're right, I have a lot to handle on my own. Just..." he sighed. "Good luck Alex."

Alex accepted his outstretched hand; he wondered if his grip was cold, but didn't dwell on it long. "You too." He frowned at his hand a moment later as he remembered. "What happened to Achiya? I remember losing it, but I didn't see it in my room."

Etoh winced. "...it was destroyed, Alex. Wagnard broke it to pieces."

"..." It was harder to hear than he'd thought. He'd lost track of how many times the blood-thirsty lance had saved his life. Sighing, he turned to Kashue. "I don't suppose you have a lance I could take with me? And a horse, if you have one to spare."

Kashue waved it aside. "Take whichever horse you like. I remember how vicious that stallion of yours was; you shouldn't have too much problem with a desert mount. As for a lance..." he hesitated for several long moments, then sighed. Turning back to one of his guards, he called him over. "Go to the barracks. Tell Shadam to bring out one of the Lances we took with us." He watched the man bow and scurry off. Turning back to Alex, he offered a faint smile. "They were meant to kill dragons, but they'll be effective against anything really. Besides, they were well-made lances before they were ever enchanted."

Alex bowed. He'd been hoping for a good-quality lance; this was more than he'd hoped for. "Thank you."

Cyrus winced, but flapped over to Alex's shoulder. He needed to get this done with now. _Alex, you don't need a horse. I uh...I seemed to have...neglected to mention something about Bucephalus._

--------

"Ashram?" Pirotess frowned as she watched her Emperor stare into the surf. It had been nearly a week now. A week of riding hard, sleeping little, and riding again. Riding by night, from the long sunlight of the setting sun through moonrise and moonlight, riding until the long slanting light of the sun came to torment them as they rode south and east. They ate only two meals in a day, once upon waking and once before sleeping. They slept little even by day; Ashram insisted that Pirotess sleep first, that he take the first watch; he had slept less than twenty hours in six days.

And he simply stared into the surf.

She frowned. She had chosen to serve this man wholly. She offered him her advice, her mind, her body, her devotion...he had her loyalty and her trust. And yet he gave almost nothing back. Nothing of value, certainly. She shared his body nightly (or at least she had before this mess on the mainland), but he was a man, a lord, and a knight; he put no stock in what he used his body for, only what (or rather who) he used it on. He offered her some degree of trust, but no more than what he had to give to someone who he kept so close; a bodyguard and spymaster. He was devoted to her, insofar as that he took no other women or betrayed her, but she was his vassal; he wasn't expected to be totally devoted to her.

But what of his mind? To know what he thought, what he believed...he was under no compunction to give her that. He was not expected to, but there would be no harm in it. She didn't care about state secrets, or the conclusions he reached about her intelligence work. She wanted to know what he thought, how he thought, and for no reason save that he did nothing to help her in that regard.

She wanted to know it because it was something that he would never...EVER allow anyone.

For his part, Ashram just watched the surf idly. To all outward appearances he was still the ice-cold monster, but inside he...pondered.

The humans who live on Marmo tend to be paranoid. Goblins flat didn't care (or were too stupid to think about it), kobolds were pragmatic in the extreme, Ogres lived too much in the 'now' to have the foresight necessary for paranoia, and the dark elves...well, they were paranoid about each other. They didn't believe that any other race in all of existence was truly capable of harming them or even challenging them.

Ashram, like most of the human denizens of Marmo, was paranoid. But as a great man once said (whose name escapes me), it's not paranoia if they're really after you. He knew full well that the rest of Lodoss hated him personally and his people generally. He knew that no less than eight separate crusades had been mounted against Marmo to strip it of all life, so salt the land and burn it to ash. He also knew that if you discounted the thousands of raids and thrusts against mainland lodoss, that Marmo had attempted organized conquest thirteen times.

He'd always known that it was only a matter of time before someone came along and decided to mount another attack on Marmo. His predecessors had organized an intelligence network for just that reason, had fortified the island for just that reason, had sacrificed what little chances there were to improve life on Marmo just to inconvenience an incoming army.

And now, if the intelligence reports were to be believed, the ninth crusade against Marmo was being organized at his back, under the leadership of the one person who scared Ashram.

Don't consider this foolishness on his part, nor an act of ego from the author. Ashram didn't fear Alex because Alex was stronger than him (he wasn't). He wasn't a better leader, a better fighter...in truth, he probably wasn't smarter than Ashram.

And yet Alex had killed Shooting Star, a beast that Ashram couldn't defeat.

And it had driven home Ashram's misgivings, his little pet obsession with the Coyote. He finally understood why he thought about Alex so hard.

Ashram couldn't think like Alex did. And that scared him.

Kashue was a great leader; brave, good-looking, and incredibly charismatic, he drew people to him easily. He commanded respect and loyalty, he inspired faith, trust, and bravery in his men, his people, and his allies.

But Ashram could handle Kashue. He knew how Kashue fought, he could put himself well enough in Kashue's place to out-think him, to counter him and defeat him. Fahn, Kannon, Kadamos...he knew how they'd think. They were kings, born of a tradition where Kings had to think, act, and behave in certain ways, ways that he had been trained in. He could bend from those rules, but he could follow them to their natural conclusions as well. He could easily see what they would think, what they would do. He could set them up and if necessary, knock them down.

Alex didn't just not follow the rules of a king or a general. He didn't follow the rules of basic human logic.

What sort of bizarre thought processes leads someone to throw themselves literally into the dragon's mouth, simply because it is the ONE place where the dragon won't think to defend itself?

Alex frightened Ashram because he knew that they were going to clash again. He was as smart as Alex, as cunning and determined. But only with great difficulty could he even try to predict Alex, and prediction is the basis of a pitched defense.

If you are facing foot soldiers, you build moats, dig trenches, prepare pikes, raise walls. You don't do any of that against an aerial foe. If you know you'll face cavalry, you make sure that you have cavalry to counter it, for the simple reason that nothing else can catch cavalry than more cavalry.

Ashram had faced Alex in battle. He had seen how Alex fought, how he lead. But the one thing he couldn't forget was that every time he'd fought Alex seriously, it had ended in a draw that he could well have lost.

Sighing, he turned from the surf, and swung up into his saddle. This blasted messy excursion wasn't a total loss; it had given him a chance to observe Lodoss personally from a viewpoint other than that of a conqueror. It had also given him the one clue about Alex that might let him crack the man's thoughts.

In their first serious duel, when Alex had ridden to his escape, he'd revealed a mastery of the lance. In the pitched battle against the Coyotes, he had unleashed a phalanx, a never-before seen battalion, backed by men who fought in ways that had hardly ever been used. Against Shooting Star, he had defied ALL conventional wisdom, going straight for the heart of it.

He'd finally realized that the basis of Alex's strategy was simply to have something new.

--------

Alex stared gauntly at the remains of what had been Bucephalus. He hadn't asked, but he would later discover that he'd been 'dead' for three days before he managed to force some life back into his body. In that time, the desert had done its work on the remains of what had once been the closest thing to a brother that Alex had.

Thirsty desert beasts had flocked in as quickly as they could, stealing what blood and sweat they could before the desert heat could bake it away. When that was gone, the flesh and viscera had followed. The hairs of what had been Bucephalus's mane, tail, and fetlocks was scattered; they hadn't bothered to eat it, but the desert scavengers had had no compunctions against tearing it out by the roots to get at his neck, shoulders, and haunches. What remained of his hide was tattered; the vultures had pierced it to get deep enough for the good stuff, and the jackals had tugged and eaten what they could.

Even his bones were in disarray; legs had been torn out of joint for individual eating, the ribs (those that hadn't been broken by Wagnard) were crushed, and scattered like white building blocks.

_Alex, I understand that you don't have a whole lot of reason to trust me right now, but please, I'm telling you the truth. Bucephalus isn't dead._ Cyrus hunched his wings uncomfortably; his equivalent of a nervous shrug. _I'm not even sure if he could have been said to be alive to begin with._

"Right. Because that makes perfect sense. Seriously, I've been riding Bucephalus for the past five months. Granted, you hadn't met him for the first month of that, but the point remains. WHY didn't you think to tell me this at the time?"

Cyrus hunched his wings again. _Honestly? Didn't feel like it. Besides, those things are notoriously cruel and bloodthirsty._

"...again, WHY didn't you bother to tell me this?"

_...Alex, do you have any idea how long its been since someone successfully rode one of those things? When I showed up, you had Bucephalus TAMED. TAMED, Alex._ He hunched. _I never would have thought that was possible without knowing what he was. And by the time I figured out that you didn't have a clue...well, it didn't seem important. And hey, it's not like you've ever kept secrets. From me too, remember?_

"Like what?" Alex demanded. "Okay, I'll concede that I'm secretive. Completely true. But what secrets have I kept from you? Name ONE."

_How about your plan for the battle?_ Alex remained silent. Cyrus smirked. _I know you haven't told anyone else because you need them to come to the wrong conclusion, but why not me? Who could find out? Who could I tell?_

"How about any one of the thousands of wizards or shamans on Lodoss that can tell you're not just a stupid bird, and know that I keep you around at all times?"

_...good point._

Alex sighed. On the one hand, Cyrus had torqued him off. On the other hand, he had a point; it was at least SLIGHTLY hypocritical for Alex to judge or condemn others for being secretive. Besides, he'd always had a hard time retaining a bad mood after sleeping (and his dead coma was apparently close enough). "Okay, so I understand that Bucephalus wasn't a normal horse, and was something cruel, vicious, and bloodthirsty that, according to you at least, could survive having its torso turned into pate and then being eaten. So. Care to tell me WHAT he really was? Or is? Or whatever?"

Cyrus chuckled nervously. _Um...you've heard of nightmares, right?_

"...considering that I ended up accidentally watching HIM mount several mares when we were hanging out with the Lusitanians, I'm going to have to venture the opinion that mare might not be the best word to describe him." Alex frowned. "I'm assuming you're talking about how evil 'horses' were supposed to haunt people's dreams, right? THAT kind of nightmare?"

_Uh...yeah, kind of. Except that the night...well, I guess night-stallions are sort of...well, runty compared to the other ones. Not to mention a bit nicer._

Alex rolled his eyes. "Bucephalus spent at least a half an hour a day trying to eat my fingers for no other reason than boredom, as far as I can tell. THAT's supposed to be nice?"

_Hey, nightmares exist for the sole purpose of spreading terror, fear, discontent, and torment._ Pause. _That and chasing down whatever males happen to be convenient as necessary. So it's not too hard to believe. I mean really, Bucephalus just killed other people by the cartload by stomping out their brains or biting off important bits of their bodies. _Another pause. _Okay, that might not have helped my case too terribly much._

Alex shook his head. God Cyrus was a pain in the ass. It could have been worse; he could have ended up with Kir from King of Bandits Jing. No matter how annoying the damned bird was, at least he wasn't some sort of bizarre, bestiality-prone womanizing kleptomaniac (if it's a different species, it's technically bestiality. Even when the other species in question is human). "Fine, let's say I buy it. How does this give me back Bucephalus?"

Cyrus hunched. _Well, as near as I can tell, someone sorcerer or priest or something was trying to get themselves a horse that would be stronger, faster, and deadlier than anything normal. So they took a mortal horse, killed it, and left its body in a summoning circle to try and possess it with a Nightmare. Except they were too weak, and some enterprising young...male, had the intelligence to answer the call and possess the horse's body, bringing it back to life._

Alex was silent for a while. When Cyrus remained silent as well, he finally sighed. "I'm going to need a bit more than that to go on."

_Well, think about it. Bucephalus wasn't really ever alive to begin with, and no one noticed it. I mean come on, it's not like people automatically assume a bad-tempered horse is possessed by a demon, they just chop off its nuts. So if he was a spirit who was never alive to begin with, why can't he still be around?_

"...that's it?"

_Huh?_

Alex palmed his face. "Cyrus, you bloody idiot. You brought me all the way out here because Bucephalus MIGHT still be alive?"

_...maaaaaaybeee...?_

A sudden chill that quite literally even a dead man could feel was the only thing that saved Cyrus from being used as flyswatter.

Sand muffles sound to a degree; walking on sand creates far less noise than walking on streets or dead leaves might. Howling winds, particularly those that accompany the twilight drown out sounds even further. It would be difficult under the best of circumstances to hear an opponent approach, and Alex was most decidedly NOT at his best.

He heard not a thing, he saw nothing until the last moment...but he knew it was coming from nearly a thousand feet away. The unholy, un-natural aura he felt was only too clear a warning.

He felt his jaw drop slightly as he took in the sight. Bucephalus had followed him begrudgingly in life. He had seemed to calm down while Alex was dying. Now, Alex was dead, and Bucephalus came of his own free will.

That didn't make it any easier to recognize what had once been a magnificent horse.

Bucephalus had been a somewhat atypical horse of the light type; he was tall, lean, and swift. Unsuited to heavy burdens, his speed had been awe-inspiring, his endurance incredible, his intelligence unsettling, but even the most jaded would have to admit that he was a beautiful animal.

There remained something that might have been considered beautiful in him now, but it was hard to notice. What had been glossy, dark gray hide was dull now; like suede where it once had been like polished leather. His good, hard musculature was stretched tight, too tight; he was whipcord and bone, gaunt where once he'd simply been leanly healthy. His eyes were too bright now; brighter than any creature with simple animal intelligence could ever have possessed. There was malice visible in his eyes now, malice and calculation, cunning that belonged in the eyes of a devil. Thick, shaggy white hair that had been a mane had disappeared completely, almost invisible. If hair remained there, it was too fine to tell; where a mane or tail should have been, what looked like gray high-altitude cloud wisp waited.

He looked dark, shadowy, creepy, and evil. And finally, Alex was willing to believe that Cyrus had been telling the truth.

He could believe that Bucephalus sired Nightmares.

Cautiously, Alex approached the Night Stallion. Bucephalus had lost a great deal of his sadistic tendencies (at least towards Alex) in the past months, but he'd always demanded respect. More importantly, Alex had never managed to forget how their 'relationship' began.

Bucephalus was faster than he remembered; as shot as his reflexes were, Alex doubted he could have dodged the bite if he hadn't been prepared for it. Shaking his hand, he glared at the horse currently snickering at him. "Are we going to have to go through this again?"

Bucephalus pointedly shat on the desert sands.

Shaking his head resignedly, Alex tensed the Flowing Soul; limp muscles hardened as he prepared. He still needed to reach Fire Dragon Mountain to un-curse enough of Shooting Star's gold to pay off his debts. Afterwards he was going to have to ride across probably half of the roads of Lodoss if he was going to properly collect all the militias he organized. Afterwards, or during, he'd have to head to Raiden to collect his guides and some of the...specialists he'd arranged for. And when that was all finally finished, he had to organize probably ten to fifteen thousand men, see to their last-minute training, equip them, and somehow drum up enough courage and confidence in them to keep them alive on Marmo without lying his ass off.

By contrast, keeping on Bucephalus's back would be a cinch. The easiest part of his next two months, and he couldn't even take the time to savor it. Pissed him off.

Which was quite possibly the best possible mood he could be in for this.

Bucephalus wrinkled his lips at his potential-master; it was as close to a grin as he could manage. He knew the score, he knew what to expect. If he stayed on his own, he could run around, find various mares to impregnate with his demonic seed, and unleash a curse of magnificent, unridable horses on Lodoss, all while staying as far away from those crazy, bitchy other-worldly mares he was supposed to sire on. Not a bad plan, in and of itself.

But...if Alex was actually strong enough to best him in this new game, then he would be ridden to the unholy citadel of the goddess of madness, where he would get to kill hundreds if not thousands of people personally, all while drinking in the screams and torment of more dying than even he could kill.

Gotta love win-win situations.

--------

Wort frowned. "I'm sorry?"

Renard smiled. "I asked if you had anything to drink."

Wort stifled the urge to roll his eyes. Nearly thirty years of blessed solitude, and twice in the last six months his tower security had been bypassed with insulting ease. Sighing, he lowered himself into one of his over-stuffed chairs. "You broke into my tower days ago, and somehow in that whole time you never managed to find the wine cellar?" He used a minor cantrip to levitate a bottle of brandy he particularly favored towards the stranger. "Drink all you like. Say your piece, and then please be so kind as to leave and never come back."

Renard accepted the bottle, looking about for a glass. Finding nothing but beakers full of liquids that would probably cause complications to even him if he drank them, he simply raised the bottle in toast. "Hope you don't mind me drinking straight from it."

Wort shrugged tiredly. "It's more than half-empty anyway; if I wanted some back, I would have levitated you a glass in the first place. Now, I repeat. Say what you're here to say, then please leave. And don't come back."

Renard polished off half of the bottle's contents, ignoring Wort for the time being. Sighing blissfully, he set the bottle in midair and left it there. "You've got good taste in wines. My compliments." Settling himself more comfortably in another armchair (Wort's tower was littered with the things; he liked his comforts), he hooked one foot over his leg, clasping his knee in both hands. "I'm here about Alex."

Wort groaned. "Good gods, when will you people leave me alone about him?"

Renard shrugged. "I can't speak about the rest of Lodoss, but I'll be leaving you alone regarding him once he's dead. So soon enough, no need to worry. Anyway, I simply came to ask you to consider why Wagnard decided to acquire the Scepter in the first place."

Wort frowned. "Are you mad? Who wouldn't desire the Scepter of Domination? Particularly ambitious, power-mad lunatics."

Renard 'tsked.' "Wort, you're not thinking. Consider this; what is required to resurrect Kardis?"

Wort frowned. He wasn't a priest or religious scholar; he knew more obscure lore than anyone living on Lodoss. The rebirth of Kardis was unfortunately NOT the sort of thing that comes up in most research. "Considering the abduction of Deed and recent events, I'm assuming a high-elf sacrifice and the Scepter."

Renard shook his head. "I checked. Sacrifices are the only requirements." His voice took on an odd tone, almost as though he was deliberately dramatizing his next words. "You must take your immortal high elf down into the depths of Marmo's bedrock, where rests an Altar, an Altar carved out by Kardis herself in the last moment of her life; the gateway that lets her back in, sealed by Falaris himself." He waggled a finger as Wort's mouth opened as his voice went back to normal. "Now now, you said you wanted me to talk and leave. It would be rude to interrupt me now." Wort's mouth closed. Smiling, Renard continued. "To open this gate, take six high-ranking priests of Falaris along with you. There are six pillars surrounding the Altar that serve as material links to the mystical and divine seals that hold her. To unlock those seals, the souls of the six priests must be sealed into them, dissolving their bodies in the process. As each seal opens, the force that Kardis can release will increase, until with the sixth seal opened, she will be able to open the seventh, and claim the High Elf's soul."

Wort frowned. He couldn't decide which unsettled him more; the fact that this complete stranger knew so much about how to unseal Kardis, or the utter unconcern with which he talked about it. "Pardon my question; why WOULD it require a sacrifice?"

Renard grinned; he liked rubbing it in other people's faces. "I checked that too; apparently, those seal thingies in the pillars? They're powered by six dispossessed demons." Oh, it was fun to watch people's eyes widen like that. "What happens is apparently with each priest's death, the demon is let loose, his soul replaced by the priest's. Only a priest, even a powerful one, isn't up to the strain. More importantly, the seal is DESIGNED around demonic power, which priests can wield but never truly possess. So anyway, by using the priest's souls to force out the demons, they can trick the seal into staying relatively stable, but NOT into keeping anything out. The big seal around Kardis though? It's the same design, just more powerful. So, in order to get her out of there, you need something to replace her, another immortal's soul."

Wort stared. "But that's ridiculous! Even if Deedlit IS immortal, her soul can't possibly be held to the same caliber as a god's True Form!"

Renard shrugged. "Who said it was? The seal's designed to contain an Immortal, not necessarily a deity." He grinned nastily. "Wouldn't surprise me if Falaris sealed her like that as a contingency to get him out and about again."

Wort shivered. Somehow, that made sense. It would take something with the sheer reality-warping force of the rebirth of another deity to let Him loose in the world again. And the idea of Falaris loose in the world completely unchecked and unopposed scared him far more than the thought of Kardis released. Kardis would just kill them all. Falaris was capable of quite a bit worse.

Wort frowned suddenly. "Wait a minute, if that's true...why the scepter?"

Renard smirked. "Exactly."

Was he referring to the scepter? Or the 'if that's true?'

Wort frowned. "But that doesn't make any sense; if Wagnard just wants Kardis resurrected..."

"EXACTLY!" Renard crowed, nearly sending Wort falling out of his chair. Renard grinned maniacally. "BUT! Therein lies the REAL question...does Wagnard intend just to resurrect Kardis out of piety and all that crap? I mean really," he leaned back, posing languidly, "if that's not the case, why would he decide to steal an artifact capable of dominating even the gods?"

Wort felt something in him shrivel up...oh yeah, those were his testes. "You can't be serious. HE can't be serious; not even Wagnard would be insane enough to..." _to resurrect Kardis just to control her._ Wort slumped in his chair. "No...he might be that crazy." He groaned, running his hands through his thinning hair. He missed the old days; it was so much simpler being a mercenary mage. Kill it, burn it, freeze it, or blow it up. Collect pay. Drink yourself stupid, bed a whore, cast the spells you need to make sure you don't have any diseases the next morning. Repeat as necessary.

Renard smirked, and rose to leave. "So anyway, have fun trying to stop him, or whatever you decide to do. I'm done, so I'll go ahead and leave. And not come back." He smirked and vanished.

Wort didn't think about dimensional anchors and anti-teleportation wards that Renard had just utterly invalidated. He'd just had a terrifying thought.

The Scepter of Domination had the ability to control ALL the magic on Lodoss, something that Wagnard would know. But in a little over a month, when the Blue Moon rose...the magic that would be on Lodoss would reach a peak like nothing he'd ever imagined possible.

Something that Wagnard would also know.

A good week before the supposed Day of Resurrection for Kardis.

The only problem was that the Scepter wouldn't give any great control over Wild Magic; if anything, a night of Wild Magic would be the worst thing imaginable for the Scepter. Wild Magic tended to oppose control, almost consciously. If Wagnard tried to wield the scepter on that night, he would command all the magic of Lodoss, the one thing that the Wild Magic could be counted on to oppose.

But would Wagnard realize that? He was a priest, not a master of arcane theory.

Wort's head bowed. If this...stranger was telling the truth, or at least if he'd come to the correct conclusions, then Wagnard was planning on waking up Kardis and enslaving her with the Scepter of Domination. And if THAT was the case, depending on just how ignorant or knowledgeable Wagnard was, he would either resurrect her on the night when her powers were greatest, the night when she would be well-equipped to oppose him...or he would resurrect her on the night when his once chance at controlling and containing her would be completely useless.

Wort sighed. Yes, he very much missed being a simple mercenary mage.

--------

It had to have been the two-hundredth bump in the past hour. Sure, Ghim wasn't anal enough to actually count the bumps, but he could imagine. Largely because he was pretty damn sure that it would take at least two hundred bumps on the road in the driver's seat of an oxcart to get him in a mood this foul.

Grunting sourly, he turned around in the seat, looking back over the huge line of oxcarts stretching out behind him; nearly two hundred all told, each packed to the gills with dwarvish goods, all of it either razor sharp or strong enough to withstand a blow from an ogre's fist.

They'd need it, poor schmucks.

Turning back, he glared balefully at the oxen in front of him. God's almighty, why the hell did he have to drive these damned things? Staring up a cow's arse-hole for the better part of a week and a half...this was the shit you dumped on the greenies. He was a four-hundred year old master smith and a veteran of three wars; he deserved a lot better than this.

Sure, it would be fun to see Alex again, give him crap. Hell, it would be fun to see just about any of them again, give them crap. And if the rumors were to be believed, and all of this was for an invasion of Marmo, well...he grinned ferally. He honestly wished that a horde of kobolds would come streaming over that hillock up ahead. The mood he was in, he'd probably grab the first one and use the poor bastard as a club to beat the rest to death.

He grumbled a bit as the fantasy died; clearing the hillock didn't show an enemy in sight.

Instead, he found a war-camp. Just where Alex had said it would be, damned near half a year ago.

There weren't many tents; it was still nice enough weather on the seaside that it was bearable to sleep out of doors. Most of the men had just marked their territory with a bedroll and a stand for mock-weapons; he noticed a shit-load of those twenty-foot pikes that Alex seemed to like so much for his spear-fodder. Ghim shook his head. He'd take an axe any day, but it made sense; that phalanx or whatever it was called was the only way for a bunch of brand-new recruits to stand any chance of surviving a pitched battle.

Still, if his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, it looked like damn near twenty thousand men were camping down their in the foothills of Kannon. And that was just the peasant militia.

Driving further into the camp, Ghim looked around distrustfully; these guys were supposedly going to all be on the same side, but none of them looked right. Gaunt, crazy-eyed guys edgily brushing down horses that looked meaner than starved wolves and crueler than bored mountain cats watched just as warily as he drove past; he was guessing those were the Lusitanians he'd heard about. He had to wonder if riding those crazy horses of theirs was worth it; a good third of the riders were missing fingers, and he doubted it was to pox.

Carals looked on with more curiosity than concern; tall, lanky, and tanned, they looked like humans who'd tried to turn elf-pretty. Tough enough, Ghim supposed grudgingly, if their reputations were anything to go by. Though frankly, anybody willing to go riding around on one of those long-legged, short-winged giant hawks of theirs had his respect.

Not that he'd ever mention it.

The militia, the barbarians...he'd heard about them both, and expected them. It was the ragtag he noticed towards the center of the camp that surprised him.

"What the hell are smugglers doing here?" he muttered under his breath as he drove the wagon towards the clearing. They were pretty obviously smugglers, gun-runners, or pirates; nobody else he'd ever seen actually dressed that ridiculously. They sort of blended in though, what with the various other scruffy individuals, some of them angry-looking enough to give even the tough, seasoned old dwarf pause.

Shaking his head, he yanked back on the reins as he neared the biggest tent. Not that a big yank was necessary; the oxen had just been plodding along. It was the principal of the thing. Namely, the oxen pissed him off, so he went out of his way to try and make them uncomfortable.

Simple, really. Good dwarven logic.

Grunting, he eased himself off the bench; his ass felt like it had taken the shape of the board, and his legs were cramping up. Looking sourly at the tent, he stooped, hefted a rock about half the size of his clenched fist, and lobbed it into the tent.

There was rattling, a bit of cursing, and shortly thereafter Wood poked his head out of the tent. "Who the fuck just threw this at me?!" He made a sort of 'gah!' noise when a second rock followed, narrowly missing his head.

Ghim grinned. "Sorry. Thought Alex was in there. Aiming at him." Alex came out a second later, and Ghim felt his smile fade.

He'd heard the rumors; most of Lodoss had at this point. Looking at him though, he couldn't help but believe them now. Alex had always been skinny, but now he looked almost as though he were wasting away, half-starved or something. He'd also always been tanned; he looked pale as a vampire now. Between that and the fact that he didn't look like he'd bothered to comb his hair for the last two weeks, he looked more like a fresh corpse that had dragged itself out of its coffin than the pain-in-the-ass who'd commissioned this big-ass order and gotten him that idiot's duty. "God, you look like crap."

Alex shrugged; he'd started wasting shortly after he left Flaim, and hadn't noticed it really until a few days later. By that time he'd lost nearly thirty pounds before he managed to track down Etoh. Now, in addition to Cain, he wore a pendant around his neck that had originally been designed as a grave offering for dead kings, to ensure that they stayed...presentable until their funerals; presentable and not-demonically-possessed. It didn't stop him from getting pale, but he didn't care. And frankly, after spending literally half of the last two weeks explaining what was happening, he was getting tired of people bringing it up. "You look old. And fat." He dodged Ghim's next rock. "And you're getting even slower than you used to be." He nearly didn't dodge the small hand-axe; he heard someone back in the tent yelp in shock. Probably Shiris. Walking over to the wagons, he threw back the dust cloth, checking over the craftsmanship. "Is this everything?"

Ghim glowered at him, but nodded grudgingly. "It looks like we might not have made enough, but you get what you pay for. Full kit for ten thousand infantry men and light cavalry; armor, helmets, shields, swords, spears...you name it. All dwarven make."

Alex nodded absently as he inspected some of the work at random. Full armor would have taken too long; Ghim had made that clear when he'd agreed to represent his clan for negotiations. He'd settle for continuing his vaguely Greek motif; breast-plates and greaves with big-ass shields. Most of the Coyotes who'd come back had kept their armor as mementos, but he'd at least try to get them to accept something better; he owed them a lot. Certainly more than some shiny new armor, but that was what he had to give them at the moment. Most of the infantry-men would make due with scale mail or roman-style laminar breastplates.

At least he could offer steel to most of them in place of bronze. "What about that special order?"

Ghim looked oddly uncomfortable. "Listen, Alex...I've got some time. Let me make you a good axe, maybe a halberd...hell, I'll make you a spear if that's what you really want." His eyes hardened a bit. "I'm serious, there's no way in hell you can take that ridiculous thing to Marmo and expect to do anything effectively with it." Alex just stared at him. Ghim growled under his breath. "Goddamnit, I'm trying to help you out here kid. I don't care what you've done or who you've done it to, I've got three and a half centuries on you, and I'm telling you that thing is NOT a good idea." Alex continued staring. Ghim growled, louder this time. "For crying out loud – "

"What did he ask for?"

Ghim started; he hadn't seen Chiffon come out of the tent. He was about to answer when he noticed just how bad she looked. "What's wrong with..." he trailed off. Oh. Yeah, kind of obvious when you thought about it. Coughing into his gauntleted fist, he fixed a frown on his face. "This idiot came charging into the forges last week, riding on some half-dead horse or something. Dragged Duer out of his forge and made an order." It might have been a trick of the light, but it almost looked as though Ghim was embarrassed.

"Who's Duer?"

Alex answered for Ghim; the dwarf probably wouldn't have answered in a manner that was even remotely civil. "Duer is what you might call an eccentric. He makes the weird weapons. He experiments. He 'dabbles.' And when I found out that Achiya's gone, I decided to have him make me a new weapon, something a bit...unorthodox."

Ghim snorted. "Idiotic you mean. Even for one of you big folks, it aint' gonna be wieldable." Sensing that it wasn't worth the effort, he finally threw his hands up. "Fine! You ain't got the sense to take advantage of it when a dwarf offers...OFFERS to make you a free weapon, that's fine with me. Not gonna beat THAT dead horse." He jerked a hand at the wagon. "Put it in the bottom, under all the armor and crap you wanted. Good luck digging it out."

Alex's answer to that was to knock down the tailgate of the wagon and start sweeping the armor aside far enough for him to grab a hold of the haft. Finding it, he took a firm grip and tore it out of the nest of armor.

The people around stared. It was not awe; more surprise or in some cases incredulity. Veterans tried NOT to look at it; some of the dwarves who'd driven the wagons were openly snickering.

It was a scythe. A REALLY. BIG. Scythe.

The scythe is a terrible weapon. Because the massive blade is set at the end of a long, unbalanced haft, it is difficult to control, requiring a massive amount of force and energy to swing. Not only that, but because the blade's length runs perpendicular to the haft, it suffers from rotational torque. A straight-bladed sword or spear is not inclined to rotate because it is centrally balanced around the weapon's long axis. A weapon like a scimitar or a samurai sword is not so balanced, but because the blade is still relatively straight and light, this torsion is easily manageable. A scythe's torsion is not.

The second problem with a scythe is the simple fact that no one has ever...EVER contrived to use one seriously on the battlefield. Peasants wield scythes in their revolts simply because there is nothing else to use; given the choice they will readily take up spears, axes, or swords. There is no accepted way to wield a scythe, no technique or style that has been laboriously researched and created by finding out how to counter the scythe's ungainliness for effective combat use.

Why then would Alex wield a scythe? He was a master of the _jumonji yari,_ a spear with a cross-shaped head, a weapon for thrusting, slashing, piercing...a weapon of good, tight control. What possible reason is there to wield a scythe?

Alex looked over the massive weapon critically; eight feet long, the last six inches of the butt had been capped with a razor-sharp spear head that did absolutely nothing to counterbalance the four-and-a-half-foot-long blade. He'd realized all of the problems inherent with a scythe when he'd decided to have Duer make him one. It wasn't a weapon he'd ever encountered, and truth be told it wasn't a good weapon for him. He'd trained with spear, arrow, and straight-sword; he was good at thrusting attacks, precision-based damage...something a scythe decidedly lacked.

The scythe, or at least Alex's scythe had only two real advantages over other weapons. First, the lesser advantage of intimidation. It was a massive weapon bearing a massive blade. If wielded effectively, if used properly, it would serve to frighten his opponents quite effectively before he ever got within scythe-swipe of them.

And yet any weapon is intimidating; he didn't need a scythe for that. Which brings us to the only genuine advantage a scythe has as a weapon.

Because the scythe is swung in a circle, and because the blade is mounted mostly in line with the perimeter of this circle, a scythe presents a very high length-to-depth ratio; the four foot blade slices cleanly but relatively shallowly, penetrating perhaps two inches for every foot of blade striking, causing a very efficient, very powerful slicing action.

Propping the scythe against the wagon, Alex calmly ignored the sniggering and shaken heads, and went inside his tent, returning a moment later with a solidly forged steel breastplate stuffed with straw (a little known fact is that in Japanese sword-testing, a bale of straw soaked in water is considered to have the same resistance to being cut as a human torso). He'd been using it as an archery target, testing to see if the arrows fired from the ogre bow Karl had given him all those months ago could hit without shattering. Dropping it, he scooted a toe under the target, and with a single solid kick launched it into the air, forcing extra power into the Flowing Soul around him as he snatched the scythe and cocked it over his shoulder.

The target came down. Alex timed his swing carefully, and thankfully for his reputation, he didn't miss.

There was a shriek of rent metal as straw flew, and the breastplate forged of quarter-inch-thick steel fell in pieces.

I will say it again. A scythe is a large, ungainly weapon. It would be difficult to wield even with training; with that training nonexistent, that only compounds it as an ungainly, difficult to control weapon. But there is no article made by man in all of history...not a sword, not an axe, not a cleaver, not a guillotine or even those legendary katana...no, there is nothing that is more perfectly suited for separating one part of a man from the rest of him.

Pierce a foe, and he may yet live to fight again, might survive on sheer force of will long enough to stab you in turn. Bludgeon a man, and he reels, he falls away, or he simply grunts in pain, but he may yet strike at you again. Slash a man and he bleeds, but that can take time if you miss, and in the heat of battle that is an easy thing to do.

But if a scythe strikes...who can fight back when their arms and legs are flying in two different directions? Who will clench a fist when their spine is severed, when their tendons fray like split twine? Who can take a blow from that brutal weapon and stand back up to oppose?

The scythe was originally a farmer's article, refined carefully and used because it is an exceptional tool for clearing a great deal of ground with each go.

Alex had simply had them make him something that would provide him that same ability on the living creatures he would have to get through in a hurry.

The scythe is the weapon of a man in a hurry, the weapon of a man who wants to kill a great many people at close range in a short period of time. It is the weapon of a man who expects to carve a bloody swathe through anything in his way.

Alex rested the scythe over his shoulder; the blade's tip was even with the back of his knee, even raised on top of his shoulder. Turning to Ghim, he allowed himself a grin as he felt his eyes turn red, his blood-lust rising. "Can you make me any other weapon that can do that?" Not bothering to wait for an answer, he spun, extending the scythe and whipping it around, slicing through the wagon's four iron-shod wheels and axles in a single blow, stopping the scythe as it came around.

The tip of the blade was an inch away from Ghim's face. To his credit, the dwarf never flinched.

Alex grinned again, resting the blade back over his shoulder. "I'm expecting a lot of resistance Ghim. I don't know how much planning is going to help me out there; I'm flying at least half blind here. I've never been on Marmo, I've never fought on Marmo, and all I know about the island is second-hand." He shrugged, his grin changing from feral to simply amused. "I need something that I don't _have_ to be careful with, something that'll clear out anything that gets in my way all at once." He hefted the black-hafted scythe meaningfully. "This is what's going to do that."

Ghim rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, you keep talking buddy. I still think you should get yourself a nice big axe and leave the scythes to those damned ogres."

Alex chuckled. "If you'll recall, I got intimately acquainted with the capabilities of an Ogre's scythe when we were defending Myce." He shrugged. "Besides, I'm going to be using an ogre's bow too. Why not a scythe?" Still grinning, he gestured them in. "You've had a long trip Ghim; I can't get drunk anymore, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to let you; I got some good stuff from King Kannon." He turned to one of the men who'd come out with him; tall and broad-shouldered, if still somewhat on the lean side, he was wearing fine, silvery chain mail over soft leather armor, his red cloak emblazoned with an almost cross-shaped sun-in-glory. "Karl, make sure the armor's properly distributed; make sure the swordsmen and the axe-men get the good stuff. The sarissans will need shields more than good armor."

Ghim shook his head as he entered the tent. Damned kid grew up. He grinned a bit. He hadn't been able to see what Alex could do with an army the last time. The kid had a good head on his shoulders; Fortress Myce had proven that. Still, it might be fun to see what he could do with a proper army at his back.

Half a step outside the tent though, he froze for a moment as it clicked. Spinning, Ghim turned to stare at the aristocratic-looking youth calmly ordering around militia quartermasters. "KARL?!"

--------

Pirotess looked around uneasily as she rode behind Ashram. She was used to being disliked, mistrusted, and plotted against. She wasn't used to mobs of angry-looking non-humans staring at her like she was so much meat. Urging her horse forward, she came abreast of Ashram. "My lord..."

"I know," he replied simply. He could feel it only too well; there was something wrong on Marmo. The beast-people, the goblins and ogres and kobolds should never have been bold enough to outright GLARE at their emperor. In truth though, they didn't. Ashram had fought alongside and against the beasts for decades, since he was a child. He respected them. And he knew that for all that the humans and elves would disagree, they were smarter than they let on. It was a bestial intelligence certainly, but it was intelligence all the same. And yet the intelligence was disappearing now; they were more closer to beasts than to people now.

Closely linked to Marmo and the dark magics of it by millennia of generations born and dying there, they were sensitive to the things he would never notice, things that not even priests and dark wizards might see.

It would seem that Chiffon, damn her, had been telling the truth.

Something was stirring on Marmo, and there weren't that many things that could cause something like this.

He ignored the almost purring pleas from Soul Crusher to crush them all then and there; she'd been all but begging for killing after having been denied Shooting Star's soul to feast on.

In the end he'd had to hunt down and kill Skurai to sate her. Greedy bitch.

They might threaten him now, or at least desire to. But they were HIS people, and he would not let some blood-born madness of that bitch Dark Goddess to force his hand, to cost him HIS people. And so, he coldly ignored their glares, and rode through the streets of his empire, straight to Castle Conquera.

He discovered shortly thereafter that the Temple of Falaris had been sealed, both magically and by stone.

He'd expected as much.

Ignoring the demands for action by his commanders, ignoring the double-talk of the priests hastening to assure him that Wagnard had sealed the temple as a precaution, he went straight to his throne room, and proceeded to throw everyone out.

"What, you mean to tell me that you're just gonna bend over and take it from the Red Queen?"

Well, everyone except Beld. And Pirotess of course.

Beld grunted sourly as he settled himself in a chair nearly as opulent and a damned sight more comfortable as the throne had been. It was a bit disconcerting to look at him; similar to Fahn, with the loss of his Sword, his years had finally caught up to him. His hair was going white, though he hadn't started going bald during the last few months. He hadn't wasted the way Fahn had, though that was at least partially due to the fact that the second his wounds had healed, he'd found a the nearest great sword and started putting himself through his paces. "That damned priest's finally signed his own death sentence. Only a question of how long now." He squinted slyly at Ashram. "So, what are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

Pirotess's eyes bulged. Beld just looked thoughtful. Ashram smiled thinly as he removed his cape and started shucking off his armor. Necessary certainly, but after nearly three weeks in it, he felt he could use a rest. "Wagnard isn't a problem; I can kill him whenever it suits me to do so. For now, I'm more worried about the forces massing in South Kannon under a familiar banner."

Beld rose an eyebrow. "You're gonna deal with the whelp first? Must be quite a guy if you think he's the real problem." Lounging back in his chair, he stretched comfortably, reaching for a metal goblet and a pitcher of wine. "If what I heard was right, Wagnard's got all the magic of Lodoss in his bony hands."

Ashram chuckled as Pirotess's eyes widened even further; she'd have to assume that the only way Beld could have found that out was a leak from her own spies. Personally, Ashram was betting that Wagnard had appeared before Beld in the flesh just to gloat (and yes, in case you're wondering, he was right). "As I understand it, Kashue is planning on sending every man of his army he can spare to try and stop Wagnard from resurrecting Kardis. Princess Fiana will likely mobilize most of her forces as well, as will Jester. Kannon will want to help, but he simply hasn't the manpower to spare; any contributions from his nation will likely be the ships that get the armies here. Kadamos will be logical and cautious. He'll see the forces that dwarf is own moving out, and realize that if they can't do it, his men can't either. He'll leave his soldiers to rot in their barracks and get every hedge-wizard and village wise-woman to Alan to figure out how to shield them if worse comes to worse." Removing his gauntlets, he placed them on the armor stand at last; it felt good to be out of the blasted heavy things. Turning, he took a seat at another chair beside Beld's; he didn't feel like being imperial at the moment. "So. The might of four nations along with whatever lunatics Alex can scrounge up, all coming to deal a hammer blow to Marmo, rescue the fair maiden, and save...the world."

Beld snickered.

Ashram smiled as he sat back. "They'll either look to Kashue or Alex. If Fahn was on the field he would lead, but his fighting days are over; he'll stay in Roid. If Kashue comes..." Ashram frowned in thought. "...If Kashue leads them, he'll delay as long as he can, building the biggest army he can put together before he sets out. He'll make for the fastest path he can find, and rely on speed and surprise to crush us quickly."

Pirotess frowned. "Are you certain of that?"

"Kashue is a desert man. I've watched him fight, but more importantly I've seen how his people fight. You don't wear heavy armor in a desert; in the heat your own armor can kill you faster than an enemy sword. You don't plod about with a strong, heavy horse for carrying an armored knight. You don't drag out a fight in the sands; any of these will kill you." He shook his head. "Kashue is a desert man, and he'll fight and think like one. Speed and skill; don't give your enemy time to out-think you. Ride in and scatter him, slaughter him before he can do the same to you. It's how Kashue fights and plans, it's the antithesis of the heavily-armored knights of the East, and it's what made him so dangerous."

Pirotess sighed. "That's all well and good, but what does that have to do with Wagnard?"

"Kashue isn't coming to kill me, or destroy Marmo, he's coming to kill Wagnard," Ashram said. "The same goes for Alex, though he'll likely do something different. Either might kill me if they had the chance, but that's not why they're coming." He smiled thinly. "They're coming here for that elf-girl Wagnard kidnapped. I say, let them have her."

He ignored the questioning stares. He'd had a long time to think about how to defend his home, and he'd finally figured out how to beat them all.

He couldn't beat Alex, not probably. But that was something he could live with; he was an emperor, a leader, as well as a warrior. He would have loved to kill Alex.

And yet he was the emperor. And so he would do as he must. He would ignore Alex Latrans, he would let him fight his fight, and in the end, he would crush them all.

--------

**Updated November 2, 2007**

It was still hard for Ghim to get used to. The last time he'd seen Karl had been just before they'd left Tarba. Granted, some changes had occurred even at that point; he'd gotten more muscular, tougher...he'd also gotten confident. You could see it in his eyes; he wasn't randomly afraid any longer. He'd seen enough and done enough that he'd started believing that even if it was new he'd more or less get through it.

But this? This...this warrior in front of him was supposed to be that polite, unimposing archer that had shown up out of nowhere to tag along on an adventure?

Karl grinned at the look Ghim kept on giving him. Or rather, he grinned at Ghim about the looks he was getting from everybody. One of the things he'd picked up from Alex's command style was a certain perverse enjoyment in metaphorically kicking someone's feet out from under them, and he'd discovered that he actually, honestly enjoyed surprising people. His current appearance certainly fit; he was nearly six feet tall now, and probably weighed a good hundred and eighty five pounds of solid, well-toned and conditioned muscle. Good food and good living had filled out the lines of his face; he wasn't fat in any way, but he'd lost that vaguely-starved look that spoke of peasantry; he looked like a leader now.

Truth be told, he was; less than a week ago, King Fahn had invited him to Valis and had him officially recognized as a free Baron, a member of the aristocracy.

He hadn't thought much of it; he'd become a leader of men during the War of Heroes, and had been a leader of men in peace ever since he founded what was now officially called on maps 'The Barony of Lucia.'

Though the best part had been finding out that about a dozen of the militia men had found their way south from Zaxom; they'd stared at him with awe, awe that had dissolved into dumb-struck looks when he started relating childhood stories and they'd realized that he was THAT Karl.

His smile wavered a bit; there was also the slight problem of example. He was, after all, a peasant hunter. A month of warfare and a few months on his own had transformed him into a Noble; people all over the camp were practically drooling at the chance to distinguish themselves in the battle to come.

Hopefully they'd have enough time to beat the glory-hunger out of their heads and replace it with some common sense before they left for Marmo.

Personally, Karl wasn't holding his breath.

Alex looked at the expression on Karl's face, somehow smug and endearing at the same time, and shook his head with a muted chuckle. If this went over right, not only would Alex save all of Lodoss, but he'd manage to pin it all on the smug bastard before he died; let KARL deal with the fame; he didn't even want to leave that much of a posthumous reputation. He straightened from where he'd been leaning against his campaign table, looking around. Most of the old gang was here; Etoh had shown up three days ago with nearly four hundred clerics; half were novices, the rest either Anointed or full Priests. He'd told them flat-out that their job was just to equalize; neutralize any magic that might be lobbed their way and make sure that the biggest possible portion of the army made it back alive. Pleasantly, that hadn't been too terribly necessary; Etoh had apparently managed to recruit the ones who were either cowardly enough to have good sense or the ones who were old enough to know better. He just hoped that the young ones wouldn't panic and waste their abilities prematurely.

It was more than he could hope for concerning the priests of Myrii that had followed Kashue; they looked closer to what he thought of as a berserker than Orson did, truth be told. Especially the priestesses; he wasn't sure why, but the priestesses of Myrii made him...nervous. Probably because when he'd informed them just how horrible the odds were and how desperate the battle might become...if he hadn't known better, he would have sworn that some of them got aroused. (1)

Leylia hadn't brought anyone but herself; she'd elected to stick close to Slayn. Alex had made some contacts with local mage guilds (mostly village guilds), and had convinced a few dozen hedge-wizards to join up, but in the area of recruitment Slayn had risen above and beyond. He'd suspected back in Fortress Myce that Slayn was a born diplomat (who smooth-talks their captors into providing civility?), but now he was convinced that Slayn was just waiting for a convenient throne to rule from the shadows.

He didn't know how; truth be told he wasn't sure he wanted to know how. All he knew was that fully half of the Alanian Mage's guild had come south to go to Marmo (likely in hopes of looting every bit of obscure, black, and quite-possibly forbidden arcane knowledge the island had to offer). He'd also dragged nearly a hundred apprentices and journey-man level mages into the mix.

Wood (to his eternal embarrassment) was NOT leading a ragtag bunch of brigands, thieves, scoundrels, and saboteurs who would make the Marmo curse their names without ever knowing who it really was they were cursing. He'd rounded them up, certain that his role in all of this would be to return to Lodoss swimming in the wealth looted from stupid Marmo armies...

...And found himself given command of nearly four thousand of King Kannon's light cavalry, the best taken from the regular army. Which left him once again in the position of respectability, put in the midst of a regular army...no, worse, he was in COMMAND of a regular army, right where anyone with a bit of ambition would be able to find him and kill him.

He didn't want to know HOW Ariel had managed to convince her father to put him in charge of an army, giving him certain 'respectable' credit from a technical point of view. He REALLY didn't want to know what she'd said or done that had resulted in both her mother and sister making lightly-veiled comments about how wonderful it would be if he were a full general. After all military accomplishment was an acceptable way for those without noble-birth to gain the status to marry well; why, it wasn't unheard of for highly successful, heroic war-leaders to find their way into the royal family!

All he did know was that yes, it had reached the point where he would freely and openly admit that Princess Ariel of Kannon...the mousy little seventeen-year-old bibliophile...naive, sheltered little Ariel...scared the piss out of him.

Certain grudgingly-respected members of the band of thieves he'd rounded had started muttering darkly about how he was up-and-coming in the world, jealous no doubt. Wood's reaction to the rumors that he was losing his touch as a thief was to drug ten of the most vocal, tie them up, and drag them into his tent to spend four hours informing them in absolutely excruciating detail about what respectability entailed.

If the rumors were to be believed, only one of them managed to keep from fainting in terror at the picture Wood had (with surprising eloquence) painted. Though he was sobbing with fear by that point.

Alex had wanted to laugh, he really had. The only problem was that he KNEW that any one of those ten thieves was more alert than he was; if Wood could sneak up on them, he could certainly sneak up on Alex. And more, Wood had gotten a bit vicious lately (it was amazing what dodging an amorous teenager for months can teach you).

Regardless, the end result was that in addition to being a general of Kannon, Wood had now become the spymaster and head of intelligence for the Coyotes.

Ghim hadn't bothered recruiting anyone to join them; he'd just told the dwarves that they could expect a shit-load of nasties to kill if they came. Eight hundred dwarves had shown up (he suspected that that Fleive son of Fleive, had been forced to order most of them to stay home or they would have just ran off to join the fun). Still, eight hundred expert warriors, miners, and siege engineers...he wouldn't have much use for a siege, not with his plan.

But then, he had to use them to besiege, right? I mean, honestly, what kind of fool keeps that sort on his retainer and doesn't use them? Alex wasn't a fool, he'd certainly use them to quickly crush and neutralize vital, heavily-fortified areas.

He prayed that the commanders of Marmo thought so; Ashram wouldn't, but the others might.

Parn, Shiris, and Orson had only brought themselves; they'd tried to convince some of their old mercenary companies to come, but they'd refused. Alex didn't blame them; with all the young men leaving to join militias, and all the regular troops either mustering or preparing to defend, it was an open market for good, reliable mercenaries. Alex wasn't offering pay, he was offering a miserable, dirty, dishonorable, nasty war.

Mercenaries tended to be smart enough when it came to their own skins and their wallets; Alex wasn't offering anything on either count. He hadn't expected anything there.

Still...it was frightening in a way. He'd done this piecemeal; talked to a village outcast here, encouraged a young, charismatic future-village-head, there...understand, he'd done it all on purpose. He'd known what he was trying for, what he was working towards.

He just hadn't expected quite this much of a turn-out.

Kannon wouldn't be able to fight; they were still struggling to rebuild their army, and more importantly to rebuild their country after the invasion. What men they could spare had already been sent with Wood. Fahn was in no condition to lead a battle, and Fiana hadn't the slightest chance in that area. Kadamos couldn't back out of this fight this time; he was already in bad enough from his decision to sit out the War of Heroes. For all that he had supposedly contributed so many wizards to the fight (officially anyway; he had to explain why they disappeared SOMEHOW), he needed more. Almost half of his army would head south.

But those were the armies of kings, armies of nations. Kashue had brought ten thousand men under his command, the finest cavalry he had. For all that Fahn couldn't fight or lead himself, he could still support them; he had sent five thousand cavalry and ten thousand infantry to support and obey Kashue. Alania had no desire to fight, but they'd sent another ten themselves, half cavalry under Marius, the other half mixed infantry. Jester claimed the sky-borne battlefield for himself; he followed neither army, but would fight beside (or above rather) either one.

All told, nearly thirty thousand men would sail south to fight their way through Marmo under the command of Kashue Arnague I, Mercenary King of Flaim.

But Alex's army was something else entirely.

Eighteen thousand peasant militia, give or take a few hundred, most turned over for phalanx training with the rest pressed into archery companies. Four thousand light cavalry under Wood's command. Nearly a thousand heavy horse, commanded by Jebra; former soldiers mostly, kicked out of their armies for various reasons that Jebra had been willing to overlook. Eight hundred axe-or-hammer-toting dwarves. Nearly seven hundred auxiliaries (priests, wizards, and healers). All of them under the command of nearly eight hundred veteran Coyotes, and in turn, him. Toss in three tribes-worth of Lusitanian horse-archers, over seven hundred men all told, and five hundred Caral hawk-riders, all of whom answered to him.

Twenty six thousand. Twenty. Six. Thousand. Twenty six thousand men, who had come at his call. Twenty six thousand men who would, by his plan, on his orders, march, fight, stand, battle, kill...and die.

It was easy to ignore it for the most part; he simply had too much to do during the day. But at nights, when he slowed down, when there was nothing else to think about, it hit him, over and over again...and the responsibility terrified him.

His plan for the invasion certainly didn't help his conscious; they were basically a shield that could get him to Conquera, and deep enough to rescue Deed.

He just hoped they didn't hate him when he had to admit it.

--------

Alex missed sleeping. To put it lightly.

You must understand; it had taken him roughly a week and a half to check on everything across Lodoss; without Bucephalus's now-tireless speed, it likely would have taken a good twenty days. He hadn't gotten the entire army assembled by that point, but he'd had enough to start the organization processes. Now, nearly three weeks later, he (and by proxy most of the veteran Coyotes) had been training the militia non-stop; marching, spear-drills, maneuvers, shield-work, strength-training, endurance-training, tactics, basic strategy...the works. He started their days with the rising sun, poured some food down their throats and set them up almost immediately on the harshest, most brutal portions of training he could think of. When they couldn't move any further, they got dragged along by those who were strong enough to keep going. Finally, when no one else was able to keep going, it became time for drilling; mastering the form of the movements without the power or effort. They finished up with tactics.

At the end of their days, most of the new would-be coyotes stumbled or were dragged into their beds and collapsed. Those who weren't forced to train, the mages and priests and quartermasters...they got to stay up into the long hours of the night doing paperwork. But even they got to sleep.

Alex's after-death coma had been the last time he'd slept in nearly a month; he was out every day at the crack of dawn because by that point he was so bored out of his mind that dragging farm-boys and blacksmiths through hell was considered a high-point. While they rested, he got to spend time discussing his strategy and the necessary tactics, assigning the roles of those who were experienced or trusted enough to fulfill them. (Incidentally, he'd been right; they'd been PISSED when they found out what he had planned). And then, with nothing left to do, with no one left to dictate orders to or try to get some work out of, he found himself in the middle of the night, physically incapable of 'powering down.' He couldn't relax, he couldn't dream, he just kept burning.

He used the time as well as he could; he'd gotten used to the heft of the scythe easily, and was now actually finding ways to use it effectively in a battle situation. He was burning through lamp-oil in a hurry writing out thoughts on what had gone wrong with Earth and how they might be avoided here (he'd gotten REALLY bored the night that began).

But he still hadn't slept. And it was driving him bat-shit crazy.

He could try and approximate it to an extent; he was trying it at the moment, lying down and staring at nothing in particular, trying to let his mind drift. He'd tried NOT thinking a few times, and found that it did absolutely no good. He'd tried thinking specifically of things that didn't pertain to the war, and found his mind slipping back to where he wanted to leave. No luck there. He was just about ready to give up the ghost, but not yet.

It was right about then that Chiffon's face swam into focus a few feet above him.

She sighed as she took in the sight; he was laying perfectly still, hands crossed over his chest, eyes staring sightlessly upward. Reaching out gently, she tried to sweep her hands over his forehead, closing them.

He gently took her hand, and moved it aside, startling her; she'd thought he was asleep. "Do you have to do that with your eyes open? It's...not very reassuring."

Alex sat up slowly, letting his hands fall to his side as he did so. "My eyes don't secrete lachrymal fluid anymore. If I blink, they're so dry that they'll probably scratch up my retinas."

Chiffon digested that silently for a moment; she'd never heard of lachrymal fluid or retinas before. At least the second sentence had been understandable. "You could always get a sleeping mask."

He sighed, shaking his head. "It won't do anything. Not seeing anything just gives my imagination more freedom, and I end up getting less rest than I do staring into space." He frowned as a thought occurred to him. "It's nearly two hours past midnight; why are you still awake?"

"I can't sleep tonight; something doesn't feel right in the camp."

Alex should have swallowed at that point; he didn't. "What doesn't feel right? Is it something magical, or something mundane?"

She sighed. "I don't know. It...it doesn't have anything to do with my sorcery, it just...it just feels like something is going to happen tonight, something...something amazing. Or something terrible; I can't tell which."

Alex remained silent as he watched her pace slowly. Terrible or amazing; he wished he knew which. It could easily go either way.

He didn't realize it; he was too deep in thought again, too deep in his plans. He couldn't see her watching him from under the curtain of her hair.

He hadn't seen a mirror in months; they tended to be prohibitively expensive here. He hadn't even been bothered to note his own appearance in a puddle in weeks. He wore the silvery-white scale armor that Fahn had given him before the battle in the War of Heroes now, and had taken off neither it nor the long gray coat over it since he'd put them on. His hair was tied back where it would stay out of his eyes, his hands were wrapped in bandages and gloved...he hadn't seen his own flesh for weeks.

He looked like hell. Nearly twenty years he'd spent in the sun, and now his skin was so pale that it seemed nearly blue in the wrong light. He'd always been thin, but his flesh was drawing itself taut now; his arms were almost bone-thin under his clothes, and his legs weren't much better. His chest was sunk, his ribs as sharp and defined as fresh scars. The bony ridges on his face were too clear; his eyes, his nose, his cheekbones and jaw all a little bit too clear, a little bit too hard. His hair was lank and dull, going grayer bit by bit as his body stopped manufacturing the pigments it needed to remain brown. He was a dead man, and after nearly three weeks of fighting it, despite Etoh's holy magic, despite all the activity he dragged his muscles through every day, he was beginning to show it.

And yet even now, with the end in sight, with hope finally gone, Chiffon still thought he was beautiful. She hadn't left his side once since the camp had been erected; she still slept in a pallet in his tent. Perhaps it was because she was so beautiful herself, perhaps even more so because her beauty had brought her so much hardship, but she saw the state he was in and she didn't care.

You must understand, Alex had never been really what you could call handsome. Oh, he wasn't bad-looking, but it would be both kinder and truer to describe his appearance as striking or exotic than handsome. But then perhaps that might have been why she could still see his as handsome now; no matter how disturbing or off-putting his appearance was now, it had to be admitted; he was still striking.

And as far as Chiffon was concerned, he was the same man, freshly stained in the blood of her tormentors, who had tried to spare her the sights of death, tried to give her a chance to get out, to reach safety. He was the same man who, battered, bruised, and exhausted, had collapsed into her arms after escaping a Marmo prison camp. He was the same man who had, even dying, forced open the iron-and-lead prison box and locked Karla away.

It saddened her at times when she was forced to realize it, but every time she'd ever realized once again how important he was to her was only when he was in pain, when he was hurt...when she began to fear that she might lose him. Deedlit's love was steeped in the happier memories they'd shared, but her own would always be linked not to the happiness he had given her day by day, but by the fear and sorrow she'd felt when she might lose it.

Alex looked up suddenly, startling her. She didn't know why he had caught her gaze then; all she knew was that he caught her eyes just as they began to fill with tears. "What...?" There was no sniffling, no sighs or sobs, there were only silent tears flowing down her cheeks. "Chiffon..."

She silently brushed aside her tears, her face turned aside. "It's nothing." It was startling when he grabbed her wrist mid-wipe; it forced her to meet his eyes, eyes that were shifting in color.

His gaze softened almost immediately; the startled look in her eyes was enough to make him rein in his emotions a bit, but for better or for worse he had her attention. "Chiffon, why are you crying? Did I say something wrong?" She was silent; she'd long since gotten used to his abruptly-changing eyes, and once the initial shock of physical contact was gone, she could easily look away.

But he refused to let go. And truth be told, she didn't want him to.

It was then that one of the priests poked his head in the tent. WHY the priest was awake at two in the morning would not be discussed. "Sir? There's someone to see you..." he trailed off, staring at the apparently intimate scene he'd just interrupted.

Truth be told, neither was particularly upset; intimate it might have been, but it was also awkward as hell.

Alex released Chiffon, letting her slip deferentially deeper into the tent, turning to the messenger. "Who is it?"

The priest bowed, collecting his thoughts carefully; it was an open secret that Alex wasn't alive anymore, and while some of the priests might be more open-minded than others, none of them could condone what was essentially necrophilia. "I don't know my lord, but it is an old man who claims that he knows you from old."

"Considering that 'old' amounts to a few months, I don't see what that could mean," Alex quipped. "Still, it's late, and I'm not in bed. If it's important enough for him to come to see me at this hour, I should at least hear him out." He walked over towards his campfire where some wine was being kept warm, pouring a cup. "Send him in." Who knew, it could always be Wort with some actual, USEFUL advice for a change.

But this night, this hour...his timing could have been better.

The priest bowed again, leaving. When the 'old man' entered again moments later, Alex threw the idea of Wort right out the door; he was old, certainly (or very well versed at walking like an old man), but he was also quite large, probably Alex's height and significantly heavier. Also, Wort wouldn't have been leaning on a huge, gnarled walking stick.

"So, you know me from old? That's not exactly a long time, you know."

The old man chuckled roughly. "True, what with you being from another world and all. Still, I daresay that the only people on Lodoss who've known you longer are either in Zaxom or already in this camp. Though you DID meet my daughter perhaps ten days before you met me."

The goblet clattered against the ground. Alex stared, face slack as the Flowing Soul flickered a bit; this was quite literally the last person he'd expected. "Your majesty..." he collected himself carefully. "King Fahn, what the hell are you doing here?"

Fahn chuckled again as he carefully slipped his hood off. He smiled, but there was something cautious in his eyes. "I hope you don't mean that the way it sounds. A man might think he was unwelcome."

Alex shook his head as expression returned to his face. "If you're talking about your refusal, I understand." He'd come by nearly three weeks ago, asking Fahn for Pharis Breath. It had been neither easy nor welcome to be refused, however kindly.

He frowned in thought; considering how far Fahn was from home, he probably wasn't doing all that well. He grabbed his campaign stool, bringing it forward for the king to sit on. "It's not much, but please, sit. You must have had a long trip."

Fahn regarded him closely for a moment, then slowly, gratefully sank into the chair. "It's hard to see you like this Alex."

Alex shrugged. "I deal with it; the looks I get from the men get worse, or more pitying every day. But then, I don't have a mirror, so I can only assume."

Fahn sighed as he relaxed more fully into his chair. "Not that, Alex." His face hardened a bit; half angry, half sad. "It was thirty years ago, but I remember fighting that demon bitch; believe me, I've seen worse. No, I mean your expressions." He shook his head, his face softening as the memories retreated again. "You were never an easy man to read, but now...now all I get to see is what you decide to show me; there's nothing left to be given away." He sighed again. "I wish it hadn't come to this, Alex. I really do."

Alex handed him a new cup of mulled wine. "I kind of doubt your wish matches mine." He tried to wince at the look on Fahn's face following his remark. "I'm sorry, that was unkind of me." He sank to a half-crouch; he wanted to be at eye-level for this. "Your majesty, I understand why you couldn't give me Pharis Breath..."

"Do you? Do you really, Alex?" Fahn looked at him, and it was startling for a moment to see his eyes harden so. "Pharis Breath won't accept me as its wielder now, because I'm not strong enough. But strength isn't all that matters; it won't accept just anyone as its wielder. It's not strength, it's not even the cause for the fight, you understand? It has to be the right kind of wielder." He gripped Alex hard by the shoulder, drawing him closer. "I remember the battles I fought, Alex. It took me a long time to truly master Pharis Breath, and there were more than a few times I lost it on the field. But no one ever managed to take it from me; kobolds tried and the sword burned them alive on the field when they touched it. I watched it boil dark elves in their skins when they tried to steal it, watched ogres and goblins melt to dust when they tried to take it from me." He frowned. "Alex, Pharis Breath was meant to be wielded for the sake of humanity, to protect them from the dregs of the world that were birthed in Kardis' blood under the cover of Falaris' darkness. And now, as it stands, there's a good chance that the sword will see you as being part of that now."

Alex frowned. "It let me wield it once before, remember?"

Fahn shook his head, sighing. "Yes, when you tried to defend the world from Karla's madness. When you were still completely alive. But now? You're one of the dead Alex, you just haven't chosen to rest. My priests look at you, and they whisper in my ears that you've become a malevolent ghost, possessing the body of a once-great hero." He looked away, unable to meet Alex's gaze. "And I'm afraid that they might be right, at least as far as the damned sword can see."

The tent flaps rustled; the same priest burst in. "My lord! You - "

Alex's glare stopped him short. "I am speaking to my friend. Do you always interrupt people like this?"

The priests gulped. "Forgive me my lord, but this is urgent. You have another guest and..." he swallowed nervously. "My lord, Princess Fiana of Valis has come to speak with you."

For a moment, the tent remained silent. Finally, Alex sighed. "Bring her by the tent; I assume that she's still outside the main camp?" When the priest nodded shakily, Alex sighed again, though this time in something closer to relief. "Bring her here then, but don't rush. I'll get my friend comfortable, and then speak with her highness." He watched the priest scurry off, the shook his head. "Something tells me that she's here about you," Alex muttered irritably.

Fahn nodded. "I left quietly; my personal attendants were told to keep it about that I was feeling ill, and couldn't be disturbed. I made it seem that our earlier meeting had me rather out of sorts; they likely believed it for quite a while."

"But she found out all the same," he muttered irritably. "Great." He peered about for a moment for a potential hiding spot. Unfortunately, the only spot he could think of was under the campaign map table, and it wasn't exactly fool-proof. The rest of the tent was rather spare; there wasn't even a courtesy screen to provide Chiffon with a degree of modesty if she'd wanted it. Grumbling, he turned to the half-elf. "Can you put Fahn under some sort of illusion? Nothing too terribly elaborate, just make him look like a different old man." Waiting just long enough to see her nod, he spun on his heel and went out to greet (and stall) the princess.

Fahn held up a hand to forestall the spell. "Please don't; I'd prefer Fiana were here to know about it as well."

Chiffon paused, but didn't look like she was all that interested in stopping. "Alex wouldn't have asked me to do this without a reason."

"True. However, his reason likely has more to do with trying to accommodate me than a desire to deceive my daughter. Please," he continued. Chiffon was silent, but she didn't cast.

Alex came in a moment later, whatever he'd been saying to Fiana disappearing into the realms of 'maybe' as he came in and pointedly took note of the fact that Fahn was still Fahn, and very recognizably so to his only daughter. For her part, the princess entered, equally hooded and concealed as her father, her statement to the effect of 'this seemed like a good place for him to come,' also disappearing into maybe.

Alex didn't bother glaring at Fahn, though he did take a long moment to glance questioningly at Chiffon; she wilted a bit under the glance, causing it to soften a fair bit.

Fiana stared at her father. "Fa...I mean, your majesty, why are you here?"

Fahn responded with a particularly un-dignified snort. "Majesty my foot. I'm your father girl, you can address me as such." She had the grace to flush. Shaking his head, he hefted his walking stick over his head; nearly five feet in length, the last foot or so was gnarled and knobbed, projections and unfinished bits of branch making the head nearly eight inches across. "I'm here about this," he said, and calmly smashed the stick against the ground.

From within the hollowed-out insides of what was apparently NOT just a cane, the Holy Sword of Pharis fell out.

Fiana gaped; the idea that someone would simply smash a holy relic of godly power against the dirt was quite a ways outside of her normal expectations. Chiffon stared too; the last time she'd seen the sword, she could only tell it was powerfully magical. Now with her greater training, she could actually SEE not only the scope of the power, but where it came from, the degree of complexity...

...and the fact that even now, it was still directly linked in some small way to Pharis.

And it frightened her.

Fahn didn't bother looking at the sword, he looked at Alex. For his part, Alex just glanced at the sword for several long moments before turning back to Fahn. "I thought you weren't willing to let me use it."

"I said that I couldn't simply hand over such a powerful, valuable artifact to you out of the blue," Fahn corrected. "I'm sorry, but it was the only course open to me. It certainly didn't help that you just stormed into the middle of my court and all but demanded it," he added accusatorily.

"I didn't have any time to spare," Alex said calmly. "I still don't."

Fahn sighed. "And I couldn't afford to let you try to take the sword and fail in front of the entire court, many of whom don't particularly care for you."

"Ah, politics," Alex muttered sourly.

"You'd do well to consider the politics here," Fahn admonished curtly. "The common people on Lodoss all but worship you as a hero, even now, when you're supposedly some sort of foul undead thing. Something that Pharis Breath might not be inclined to allow." He shook his head. "Think about what it would have done to you Alex, to your credibility, your chance of raising an army. You think Kadamos is the only one who dislikes you? You have far more enemies than just him. Supposed, just suppose that you tried to wield Pharis Breath and it denied you. You go to fight Kardis the Destroyer, queen of the dead, a dead man yourself. How would it look when a sword created to destroy evil, among them the undead, denied you?"

"Do you have so little faith in the people?" Chiffon asked quietly.

Fahn stared at her for a long time, then sighed, shaking his head. "No, I believe in the strength of the people. But would the people be enough? The lords and aristocrats of my court are strong now, and there is much they could do." He stared Alex in the eye. "How many of your soldiers are from Valis? How many from Kannon, and Alan? How many come from lands owned by great lords, lords who might hate you? How many are from lords who may not hate you, but would ally with those who did for the sake of profit? How many from lords who admire you, but would dare not go against so much on their own?

"How many could be denied their homes and farms and families and livelihoods forever if they disobeyed?" He shook his head again, tiredly. It was no small thing that a man who could and had in days past go for days without sleep on a battlefield could be so drained, forced to stare the ugliness of his people in the face. "Right now Alex, they dare not go against you; you're too popular, and your cause is something that they have no way to demonize. Not yet. But let Pharis Breath deny you, and they have their proof, or at least the chance to convince the world that you're only leading these men to die beside you to try and buy a way into the Mad Goddess's good graces."

Alex stared at him, face utterly blank. "Is that what you think I'm doing?"

Fahn snorted. "Alex, I know you better than that. I also know you're not a fool; it doesn't matter what you do, what matters is what can they convince the people you're doing."

Alex sighed; there was too much truth in that for him to be truly angry. "So why now? Why here? If you won't give it to me freely, then why like this?"

Fahn stooped, carefully picking up Pharis Breath by the scabbard, careful never to try and grasp the hilt itself. "Two reasons. First, because the Holy Sword of Pharis is a mighty and awesome weapon, and I thought you might appreciate ensuring that your enemies couldn't be sure you really had it. Secondly, here you can try in private." He fixed Alex with a frank stare. "It may deny you all the same, but here at least, here and now, there is no one to witness it, and not enough time to discredit you over it." He extended it towards him. "The question I suppose, is do you still want it? Or do you still need it?"

Alex stared at the sword warily; he'd tried drawing it once before, after Karla hit him with the Soul Reaver, back before he realized what had been done to him. He'd remembered the wrenching sensation he'd had to deal with the first time, but it had been almost infathomably worse that time; he'd wondered from time to time if maybe it was touching the sword that had led him to the straits he'd found himself in.

Now, he didn't have even the most tenuous grasp of the flesh to try and hold his soul where it should be. All that was left was will, the need to see this to the end.

Time to see if he had what it took.

He stopped breathing; there was no point to it, however much he felt it would have been appropriate. He simply stared at the sheathed sword for several long moments. Then, steeling himself, he extended one hand, and taking hold of the sheath, raised it to eye-level, staring warily.

He was essentially a construct of what Lodoss recognized as unholy magic; he was surprisingly sensitive to it. One of the side-benefits (if you could call it that) was the ability to feel divine magic, and more importantly, to gauge its level. Those senses were telling him that the Holy Sword was easily radiating enough raw power to incinerate what was left of his body if he screwed up.

He could get to Conquera without the sword, that wouldn't be a problem. In theory, he might even be able to beat Ashram and Soul Crusher without it, though he'd have to probably OD on Flowing-Soul AND burn up about half of the tricks he could think of on a moment's notice.

The problem was that considering how everything seemed to be going pear-shaped on him, he had to plan for contingencies, and saving Deed not just from Wagnard but from Kardis herself was a BIG contingency.

And he'd yet to come up with the trick that could kill Kardis on his own.

In short, he needed the Holy Sword, one way or the other; there wasn't any choice in the matter. More importantly, considering what Chiffon had mentioned about something big happening, there wasn't much TIME for choice either.

And so, before he could waste any more time coming up with reasons not to, he seized the handle of the Holy Sword and tore it from its sheath.

His scream of agony was literally heard for miles.

_Spiritus Pharis_ had been forged millennia in the past, tempered in the sacred flames of temples and quenched not by water or blood, but in the divine breath of Pharis himself. Unlike Soul Crusher, which had only gained great power inadvertently, Pharis Breath had been meant to be a holy relic from the beginning; forged of the purest steel, mounted with silver and gold, etched in holy symbols, and created wholly to the song of prayer, even to the sound of the hammer-blows. It was a direct conduit to the dormant power of Pharis, and every shred of its power flowed according to his will and Doctrine.

And unfortunately, Pharis hated the undead. And while Alex might have been fighting to save the innocents of Lodoss in general and Deedlit in particular, it didn't change the fact that he was, bluntly speaking, a foul abomination of undeath (at least as far as most priests of Pharis would be concerned).

It would take a LOT...a HELL of a lot...to overcome that in the sword's limited view.

And trying to do so was causing Alex pain on a spiritual level, of an intensity that should have rendered him comatose, dead, and the spiritual equivalent of a vegetable.

Unlike Soul Crusher, there was no sentience to the Holy Sword; it was a mindless engine that worked along the simple lines that had been given it in its forging. Namely, "Serve a worthy wielder, and through doing so, save the innocents of Lodoss for the sake of the Divine Light." Simple, really. Alex's only hope was finding a way to put his mission into terms such that the good that the sword could do through him would be enough to convince the sword to over-look his unnatural state of existence.

It would have been hard under the best of circumstances. Under this much pain, it was all that Alex could do to maintain a sense of who he was; he couldn't even remember WHY he wanted to hold the sword so badly, only that if he let go, something terrible would happen.

It was a sight to behold; a pillar of white light had erupted from the sword, engulfing Alex even as it consumed the air within the tent. It was not bright, it did not blind, but there was a forceful, undeniable sense of power within the white, mist-like glow that had suffused them all without ever shedding a mote beyond the door of the tent.

And within the light...

--------

**WHY?**

_He was swimming in...he couldn't remember what he was swimming in. Come to think of it, he couldn't really remember much of what swimming was either...what he was he doing?_

**WHY?**

_There was something...he couldn't find the word. He knew that there was something in all the...other-stuff surrounding him, and that it was...doing something to him. And he didn't like what it was doing; he felt some sort of...something. He felt like doing something that would make the...other-stuff-person not like it._

**WHY?**

_He frowned suddenly. This was...it wasn't the way he thought it should be...it wasn't...wasn't...RIGHT! This wasn't right, it was...was...wr...wrong...WRONG! There was Right, and there was Wrong. Right was what was supposed to be, and wrong was what was that shouldn't be the way it was._

**WHY?**

_But why was it wrong? What was wrong? There was something that was wrong, when it should be right; there was supposed to be something...else. Something that wasn't right now...there was supposed to be a...difference..._

_DIFFERENCE!_

_Yes...there was something that should be different. But he didn't know what it was, and that just made it even more wrong, because...because..._

_Because..._

_...because..._

_...because THAT was the difference; he SHOULD know. There were things he didn't know now, but he really knew a lot, there were a lot of things he should know._

**WHY?**

_He didn't know why, he didn't know much of anything, but that wasn't right. He knew a lot, and he HAD known a lot up until...until..._

_Until this other-stuff showed up._

**WHY?**

_There was something new now, something he remembered. It was related to that not-right feeling. It started with realizing the not-right, but he hadn't felt it until he realized it was the other-stuff that made it not-right. He had realized that the other-stuff was doing something not-right to him. He had realized that the other-stuff, the stuff that kept going WHY was doing something to him._

_And now he wanted to do something not-right to the other-stuff. Not because that would be right...he remembered again, there could be things that weren't right, but weren't not right...neither right nor wrong. Doing something wouldn't be right, but it wouldn't be wrong._

_But he didn't know WHAT to do...well, that wasn't actually too much of a problem. If he couldn't think of something to do, and if the other-stuff was making it so he couldn't think of something to do, then he just had to get rid of some of the other-stuff, and he'd probably be able to think of something to do._

**WHY?**

_He felt something then; something that wasn't him, but it wasn't other-stuff either. It wasn't a stuff either, it was a thing, just one thing that felt all weird, kind of squishy and shapey, like it could never be a stuff, but it could fill up stuff._

_And with nothing else to work with, he grabbed the shapey-thing, and pushed it out against the other-stuff..._

And something shattered.

--------

**WHY?**

It took Alex some time to make sense of things again; the other-stuff...LIGHT. It was light, from the Holy Sword, not other-stuff. The LIGHT had done a number on him; being numb to physical stimulus had apparently had the unfortunate side-effect of leaving him particularly sensitive to non-physical, specifically spiritual stimulus. The pain would have been bad under any circumstances, but in that state, he'd hurt so much that for a time, there literally hadn't been any room for anything BUT pain.

Once that had worn off though, there had been room. There just hadn't been anything there to fill it at first. It was pure, simple instinct that had kept him going at that point, instinct and the Flowing Soul. Apparently his hatred for coercion WAS soul-deep; stripped of everything but spirit, he'd somehow divined that something had forced him into that state, and he'd lashed out against it instinctively. Add to that the flowing soul, and he'd been able to force a layer of...something against it, giving him more room for himself, and inadvertently...well, for lack of a better term, forcing a reboot.

**WHY?**

Which brought him back to the present. Floating in a seemingly infinite plane of white, with nothing, not even a self-image there, only a vague sense of Self, and an even vaguer sense of Other.

An Other that was apparently the sum consciousness of the light surrounding him. And an Other that WOULDN'T. STOP. ASKING. THE. SAME. FUCKING. QUESTION.

**WHY?**

"WHY **WHAT** YOU FUCKING OVERGROWN LAVA LAMP?!"

...silence, at least for a time. Then...

**...UNSURE...**

Alex groaned. "Great, an incompetent inquisitor." He looked around; infinite white was boring as hell, and apparently unlike his mind-scape, he couldn't manipulate this place to his liking. "Just who the hell are you, anyway?"

**...WHO INCORRECT DESIGNATION. WHAT DETERMINED AS MORE APPROPRIATE.**

Alex groaned again; this was getting ridiculous. Apparently, this thing wasn't going to be of any use; that didn't surprise him too much. Which left him to figure this out on his own.

It took him all of thirty seconds to figure it out; it was pretty glaringly obvious when you thought about it.

The last thing he'd done had been to grab the Holy Sword, so called because it was holy to the God of Light. A sword that he had been warned would be actively antagonistic to him.

That had been followed immediately thereafter with excruciating pain, and gaining first consciousness and then his sense of self floating in an infinite sea of light.

The obvious answer? Either A) he was in communication with some sort of retarded version of Pharis, or B) he was communicating with whatever magic existed within the sword.

Given that it somewhat mechanically designated itself as a WHAT rather than a WHO, he was betting on the sword.

Having established that he was currently talking to light-magic, he came to the next immediate obvious conclusion; he needed to get OUT of this light. He also needed to get the sword to work for him in the process. And unfortunately, his 'captor' was too stupid to trick.

Still, he made do. "So you're the Holy Sword, right?"

**...DESIGNATION ACCEPTABLE.**

"...okay. Why are you asking me why?"

**IT IS MY PURPOSE TO DO SO.**

Alex sighed. This was going to take a while. "Okay, what purpose is fulfilled by asking me 'why'?"

**DETERMINING POTENTIAL WORTH OF WIELDER.**

Alex digested that in silence. "In other words, this is the test. I have to convince you to let me wield you, or...?"

**THE LIKELY OUTCOME WILL BE DESTRUCTION.**

"Isn't that a little harsh?"

**YOU'RE UNDEAD. DESTROYING UNDEAD IS WHAT I DO.**

"...among other things, I hope."

**THE DESTRUCTION OF THOSE DESIGNATED AS EVIL IS MY PRIMARY PURPOSE.**

"Define evil."

**THOSE OPPOSING THE DIVINE WILL OF PHARIS.**

"That – " Alex bit back his retort. It was a stupid line of reasoning, but that wasn't any reason to antagonize it; philosophical debate wasn't exactly a good idea here. He'd save it for a last resort. "That being the case," he picked up, "wouldn't my quest be considered along the lines of the Divine Will of Pharis?" He blinked; he could actually HEAR the capital letters.

**YOUR QUEST IS UNKNOWN TO ME. CLARIFICATION IS NECESSARY.**

Alex rolled his eyes. "I'm building a huge army to fight a path to Castle Conquera on Marmo, the land cursed by the death of Kardis, to oppose and maybe kill those who still worship Kardis and Falaris, rescuing a high elf in the process, and actively standing against Kardis."

**OPPOSITION OF THE ADVERSARY AND THOSE WHO STOOD WITH HIM IS IN KEEPING WITH THE DIVINE WILL OF PHARIS. AIDING ONE WHOSE EXISTENCE IS UNNATURAL IS NOT.**

Alex waited, but as it became clear that the sword wasn't planning on saying anything further, he plowed ahead. "So? Does the fact that I'm going to fight against the cause of Kardis balance out the fact that I'm undead?"

**SUCH CANNOT BE BALANCED. THERE IS RIGHT, AND THERE IS WRONG.**

"What?! What about gray areas?"

**THERE IS LIGHT AND DARKNESS. GRAY AREAS DO NOT EXIST.**

"Then what do you call me?"

...CLARIFICATION IS NECESSARY.

"Do I look like I'm made out of light, or darkness? I was matter back when I was natural, not light or darkness, and I'm not sure as hell not light or dark now, I'm undead."

**CONFUSING.**

"You're telling me." Alex shook his head. "Look, it's very simple. If you aid me, I will use your power to try and kill Kardis, thus removing any of her further influence on Lodoss. Would that qualify as good?"

**ENDING KARDIS' REIGN ON FORCERIA IS IN KEEPING WITH THE DIVINE WILL OF PHARIS.**

"Okay, how about this; sitting back and ALLOWING Kardis to destroy everything...good? Or evil?"

**...EVIL.**

"So, if you DON'T aid me, you're tacitly allowing Kardis free reign to do whatever she desires, because you are now in a position to do something to oppose her, and choosing not to." He raised an eyebrow. "Can you perform an evil act?"

**AIDING YOU CONSTITUTES AID TO THE UNDEAD. UNACCEPTABLE.**

"OH COME ON!" Alex snapped. "You're going to let an insane goddess loose just so you don't have to help out one still-thinking zombie?!"

**THERE ARE NO GRAY AREAS. PERFORMING A LESSER ACT OF EVIL TO FOIL A GREATER ACT IS UNACCEPTABLE; ONLY ACTIONS THAT ARE DESIGNATED UNQUESTIONABLY GOOD ARE ACCEPTABLE AND ALLOWABLE.**

Alex sighed. "Great." He frowned in thought; he did have to wonder why the Holy Sword was still allowing him to plead a case. Did it have to wait until he admitted defeat or something? He frowned. Or did that mean...he managed a slow, if rather grim smile. "You are aware that my continued undead state is eroding my control? And that without that control, my body will become inanimate, soul-less dead flesh? That my death is inevitable?"

SUCH WILL ADVANCE THE CAUSE OF GOOD; THAT IS TO THE GOOD. YOUR DEATH WILL HOWEVER BE REGRETTABLE.

Alex rolled his eyes. "How diplomatic. Anyway, did you know that the more active I am, the more time it burns away? That if I were to, say...go to war, it would accelerate my demise from perhaps six more months to say, two to three weeks?"

**DULY NOTED. HOWEVER, THIS SEEMS TO BEAR LITTLE RELEVANCE.**

"Bear with me. If you aid me, then you will be directly furthering the cause of good by opposing Kardis."

**AIDING THE UNDEAD –**

"Hold on, I wasn't finished. If you aid me, you will also force me into a state of highly aggressive action, thus accelerating my demise. So." He grinned triumphantly. "You, by not directly opposing my wielding of you, will directly influence the course of a war against evil, while simultaneously contributing to the demise of one of the undead."

**...DOING SO WOULD STILL CONSTITUTE AID TO THE UNDEAD.**

"OH COME ON!!! I'm going to be dead, what possible benefit could this be to me?"

Alex plowed ahead. "Besides, if you do things THIS way, you fulfill your purpose in such a way that allows an undead a chance to redeem itself, at least in theory." He smirked. "I mean after all, Pharis IS a merciful as well as righteous, isn't he?"

"...well?"

**...ACCEPTABLE.**

And the world shattered.

--------

Something was shaking him. Or someone, rather.

You see it on occasion in those zombie movies, that sort of creepy way of sitting up, where your head hangs limp, bent backwards as your chest rises, giving the impression that there's some sort of secondary force bringing you up, not your muscles.

Quite accurate, in Alex's case. Unfortunately, it did nothing to alleviate the nearly overwhelming case of the willies that it gave the soldier shaking him.

Though it DID serve nicely to make him forget that the sword in his hand looked REALLY impressive and should have been instantly recognizable. "What?"

The soldier shook his head, taken aback. "Oh!" He jumped to his feet and bowed. "I apologize for disturbing you, but there's been an attack!"

Alex was on his feet in a second, Holy Sword on the ground, scythe in his hands. "WHAT?!"

The soldier gulped; he really hoped that what he'd heard about Alex not shooting the messenger was true. "Two dark elves, sir. They didn't kill anyone, but...the Baron Lucian..."

Alex didn't wait to hear the rest; he shot out of the tent, Chiffon close on his heals. "Karl..."

It was easy to find him; you just had to follow the sound of outraged murmuring. Alex slowed to a halt; soldiers were clustered around the entrance of Karl's tent, but no one was going inside. Steeling himself, he went inside.

It wasn't as bad as he would have thought, at least not at first glance. There was blood, but no obvious wounds. Then he wondered WHY Karl was lying on his back, supporting himself by the elbows. Also why Etoh and Leylia were clustered, not at his head, or chest, but at his legs.

Then he and Karl made eye-contact.

There is a lot that can be said with a glance; this told Alex everything he needed to know. He knew how bad the wound was. He knew what had to be done. And Karl, and Slayn, and Leylia, and Etoh knew as well.

Still, he crouched beside them; he had to ask. "How bad is it?"

"He'll live," Etoh said bluntly. "He took a few wounds in the arms defending himself, but I was able to heal those, as well as a cut to his face. But..." he hesitated.

Leylia felt no need to. "It's his knee, Alex. They cut the tendon."

Alex was silent for a long time. Turning very pointedly towards Leylia, he stared at her for several long moments. "Can it be healed?" he asked carefully. Leylia shook her head. She started at the sudden, cold look in Alex's eyes. "Are you telling me," he bit out, "that with hundreds of priests in this camp, you can't fix his leg?"

Etoh glared at him. "If you mean can we heal his leg enough for him to walk, then yes, it could be done by us. With a great deal of energy, time, and effort. But that would be it. If you expect him to be healed enough to ride, to fight, and to come with us in the invasion, then no. Particularly considering that those hundreds of priests are almost entirely novices who'll only be hard-pressed just to keep men alive long enough to be healed PROPERLY. Assuming they can get to better trained priests."

Alex sighed. "Great." He looked Karl in the eye for several long moments, then turned back to Etoh. "You said that you can't do it, but what about a better-trained priest, or priestess? What if we could get him to Neese?"

Etoh sighed. "Neese could repair the tendon properly, but it's not that easy. Even if she did it, he'd need time to rest, time to let it heal COMPLETELY, or he'd just tear it again." He looked at Alex frankly. "More time than we have to wait."

Alex sighed then turned to Slayn. "Take him to Tarba, then get back as soon as you can. We're leaving tomorrow."

Slayn's eyes widened. "What? But...but the new moon only just rose, it'll be nearly a month before the ceremony..."

Alex's glare cut him off. "Do you know why they hit Karl? Specifically, why they hit Karl instead of me?"

For all that it wasn't directed at him, Karl chose to answer instead. "They targeted me because you can't be targeted."

Alex nodded grimly. "They can't kill me, but they can kill everyone else. The soldiers...the priests and priestesses, the mages...you or Leylia, for that manner. Everyone here holding this army together, they can kill them. And no matter how much we tighten the guard around here, they'll find gaps." He growled under his breath. "It doesn't even matter WHO they kill, if they do; it can be random soldiers and it'll be no less effective at demoralizing us." He shook his head. "No, we have to leave soon, before they have a chance to strike at us again, before they have time to realize how much damage they can do."

Slayn grabbed his arm as Alex rose to leave. "Alex, it's three in the morning, we can't leave NOW."

Alex rolled his eyes. "Slayn, I said we leave tomorrow. It is today right now." He shook his hand free. "You have a teleportation to arrange, I believe." He exited the tent. He grabbed the nearest soldier as he left the tent. "Don't bother waking anyone, but I want the word to go around camp as fast as it can; we leave after the next sunrise." He rose a hand, quieting the murmurs. "There will be no further training; this is it. Every man here will have all of tomorrow to prepare himself for this war as best as he sees fit; write your loved ones, say good-bye...whatever you feel you need to do." He looked around, then raised his voice, loud enough for everyone assembled to hear. "When the sun rises this morning, you will no longer be trainees, no longer militia. You will be Coyotes. And when the sun next sets, you will sleep for the last time on the shores of Lodoss. Because when the sun sets next, you'll either be on the water, headed for a war the likes of which you've never imagined...or you'll be fighting that war already."

There were murmurs going through the crowd, questions and shouts, but he ignored them, cutting through the crowd towards his tent. The endgame was here, and he had one last move to prepare for.

He prayed the moves he'd made up to this point were the right ones.

--------

Wort watched and shook his head, groaning. "I'm too old for this."

He sighed as he let the picture in his crystal fade. It all seemed too convenient, really. Renard shows up to warn him of the Blue Moon, of the possibility that Alex would sail weeks too late, and now this; oh-so conveniently, Alex sailed early.

Early enough that, at least in theory, he could breach Conquera by the night of the Blue Moon.

How convenient.

How very convenient...

To be continued...

Author's Notes: Okay, the chapter is really complete this time; when next we meet, we'll get to see the landing on Marmo, and the war to come.

(1) – Rune Soldier Louie is an anime/manga series that was created fairly recently by Ryo Mizuno; it takes place on Alecrast, the not-so-cursed northern neighbor of Lodoss. It's more a comedy than anything else, and includes among its cast of a thick-headed brawling wizard-turned-hero (he shatters his wand using it as a club in the first major fight scene), a red-headed female mercenary with a build to rival a certain governator, your stereotypical money-grubbing thief, and a chivalry-obsessed priestess of Myrii who gets flushed at the thought of Ancient Dragons her god-chosen hero can slay to improve his (and by extension her) reputation.


	17. Chapter 16: Crusade

**Chronicles of Murphy**

**Book One: Book of the Accursed**

This chapter is dedicated to every reviewer, every reader, every member of , who spent six years waiting for this.

Disclaimer...actually, never mind. It's not worth the effort.

_**Chapter Sixteen**_

Crusade

Merrick swallowed nervously as his hand extended towards the cabin door.

It wasn't known through the fleet, but just about everyone on the flagship itself knew that something...weird had happened to Latrans. Granted, all things considered, that wasn't...well, unprecedented. It didn't change the fact that they were sailing into what was to the Lodoss mind the equivalent of the Tenth Circle of Hell, and their guide was being ominously silent.

Which left Merrick the unpleasant task of checking yet again to see whether or not their commander was...self-aware at the moment.

With a sigh, he rapped gently against the door, waiting for something...anything. When stony silence greeted him, he sighed again, and swung the door open, certain that he'd once again be greeted by the unsettling sight of his commander laying too-still on his cot, eyes gazing emptily upwards, hands crossed over his chest. It wasn't that they didn't believe in him, it was just that...well, they KNEW he'd been dead for a while, and they were beginning to wonder if maybe it had caught up to him. And as close as they were getting to the Marmo coast, they were now all but tearing their hair out trying to figure out what they were going to do if he didn't wake up in time.

It didn't help that many had begun to speculate just WHEN their commander was going to have the next one of these little 'spells' of his; it weakens your faith in the chain of command when you know that one of the links is broken, and reality just hasn't caught up to it yet.

Looking around the dark cabin, he started to sigh and turn around when he realized that, contrary to his expectations, Latrans WASN'T just laying there. In point of fact, he wasn't on the cot in the first place.

"What...do you...want?" rasped a voice.

Under the circumstances, it could perhaps be forgiven that Merrick's reaction to this was to shriek like a little girl.

Or maybe not; given how on edge the crew was, it didn't help much. Though it DID get them to pay attention to the main cabin in a hurry.

Glaring impartially at everyone, Alex pushed his way past Merrick. "What's the situation?"

Silence greeted him. Well, silence and wide-eyed stares.

Looking around, Alex frowned, and peered over himself. "What, did something fall off?" When nobody answered, he growled under his breath, turned around, and grabbed Merrick by the collar. "Is something wrong with me?"

"..."

Alex took a deep, rattling breath, and slammed Merrick into the cabin wall. "I ASKED YOU A QUESTION SOLDIER! YOU GONNA STAND THERE LOOKING STUPID OR ARE YOU GOING TO ANSWER?!"

"No sir!" Merrick yelped; a month of training had ingrained a few habits. "I mean yes sir! There's nothing wrong with you sir, you've just been...um...unconscious since we set sail. Sir!" he added hastily.

"And?" Alex asked, his momentary impression of a real soldier gone. When no one answered again, he just turned and glared at Merrick.

For his part, Merrick snapped to attention. "Um...we weren't sure what we should do sir!"

"Why the hell not? I've been explaining what we're going to do for the past month."

It was someone else who ended up answering that time. "Um...but...don't we need orders...sir?"

Alex turned, glaring...and did nothing. Sighing, he shook his head. "Fine, fine. I'm here now, I'm fully awake and aware. Now. I believe I asked what the situation was. Is someone going to tell me?"

Silence.

He sighed again. He didn't remember the exact situation, but someone had once told him that in an emergency situation, you never say 'someone call the police.' You grab one person, and tell THEM specifically to call the police. Granted, this wasn't exactly an emergency, but the idea was the same thing.

So he grabbed Merrick, and demanded a sitrep. Merrick was only too happy to oblige; they were less than two miles off the coast of Marmo, and on course. They'd sailed slightly southeast then curved around, with a south-by-southwestern heading; it was still just past midmorning, so they had the sun at their backs.

Nodding, Alex dropped Merrick and advanced on one of the wizards stationed on his ship (it should be noted at this point that he'd pointedly kept everyone who could be considered a 'main character' off of his ship, instead putting them in command of individual ships in the fleet. So Slayn, who had managed to teleport Karl to Tarba and come back, wasn't there for him to harangue). "Send a message to every wizard in the fleet; I want sails and yardarms down. Unship the oars, and have them take the ships about; we'll head in stern-first under oars." He pointed towards a rather forbidding-looking fortress sitting on a promontory overlooking the waters (not to mention one of the only large beaches on Marmo suitable for a fleet-worth of ships to make landing. "I want as much of the fleet as possible around that fort; make anchor at five hundred yards offshore. We'll commence bombardment at that point." He turned to leave.

"Um sir? About the...uh, 'bombardment," someone began.

"You have your orders," Alex broke in. "Just do as you've been instructed." He left with a smirk rather than a backwards glance; he only wished he could see the look on Ashram's face when the news reached him. He paused. "Oh, and trust me, it'll work."

Behind him, the soldiers looked around slightly uncomfortably. Sure, they'd been trained to do it. It just seemed...well, stupid.

Which ironically enough, was why it would probably work.

* * *

Wort frowned again at the book before him. He WANTED to angrily hurl the bloody thing into the fireplace and then hurl fire magic after it, until the stones glowed white hot and he could hear the sylphs whimper under the onslaught, but he forced himself to be...if not calm, then at least not bloody frothing furious.

Forcing several deep, calming breaths, he closed it, replaced it on his desk, and leaned back into his chair. It didn't make any sense, and while he should have expected that from something referred to as both 'Wild' and 'Chaos' magic, it didn't mean he had to like it.

What irritated him so much was that he couldn't seem to find ANY consensus about the bloody stuff beyond 'it couldn't be controlled.' Hell, there wasn't even any consensus about what triggered a Blue Moon.

He knew a regular blue moon (non-capitalized version); they popped up all the time. Two full moons within a single month, every 33 months or so. He knew that there had been 'blue moons' after significant explosions or magical events, when dust in the high winds managed to tint the moonlight blue, but that wasn't particularly note-worthy either.

The only thing he'd been able to find out exactly was that they only occurred on nights of the full moon, only on the true full moon (three days out of every lunar cycle...well, three nights anyway were considered 'full moons), and it began at midnight.

But that didn't MEAN anything, and that was what was driving him mad.

He could feel his joints creak as he sank deeper into the chair's cushions. Anger was painful, when you got right down to it. And it wasn't helping anything either.

But blast it, what else was he supposed to do? He couldn't go and fight alongside them; he didn't know Alex all that well, but the brief time they'd spent together had been enough to impress on him the fact that if they'd tried to work together, they would have butted heads the whole time. He'd be damned if he was going to go and play the archmage; a caster on his own in a war was one who was going to die very quickly.

He couldn't even go up to Valis to reminisce with Fahn, or go visit Neese; they valued his council, but none of them were very comfortable with his presence.

Sighing, he forced himself up out of his chair, and creaked his way towards one of the keep's balconies. All he could do this time around was watch. Watch, learn, and just maybe figure out what no one else had ever tried to study.

It was easy to ignore the Blue Moon; it never came in YOUR lifetime after all.

And then Alex showed up, and so did it.

And THAT was what annoyed Wort so much; it felt contrived, in so far as Wild Magic could BE contrived.

The only question in his mind was who.

* * *

"LOOSE!" bellowed the gang leader. It was followed by a sharp metallic 'plink,' groaning wood, whirring rope, and clattering chain, and finally a fifty-pound burning keg of...something went sailing across the morning sky, through a wind barrier, to smash into the currently smoking center of Fort Zyrth, one of the best defended, most heavily fortified locations on Marmo.

Etoh shook his head as he watched the men crank the arm back down to reload for another shot. It was...simple, really. Anyone could have figured it out. It was just that nobody had, until Alex had told them how to. "What do you call this thing again?"

The gang leader looked up as his men laboriously hauled on the crank, drawing the arm further. " 'S a catapult, sir."

"You don't have to call me sir, I'm not even a full priest yet," Etoh mentioned absently, quite certain that it wasn't going to do any good. "No, I remember Alex saying this was some sort of special catapult or something. What did he call it?"

The gang leader shrugged. "HOLD THAT LINE STEADY, CRANK TEAM! FIRING TEAM, LOCK THE ARM IN POSITION!" Watching carefully as the sweating men wrestled it into position, he turned in Etoh's direction. "A trebuchet, sir. Not sure what it means."

Etoh just shook his head. He'd seen catapults before, and he'd been impressed...somewhat. All forbidding wooden beams and twisted rope, they gave a sense of sort of...well, ominous purpose. You could be far more destructive with magic, and you could do much worse to a person with a blade, but...well, magic had a lighter side to it, and blades cut just about anything. To him, a catapult had always seemed like some sort of methodical, mechanical thug; it had one purpose, had been designed strictly FOR that purpose, and went about it in a rather uncomfortably businesslike fashion.

These though...there was something...well, elegant about them.

The fact that they'd been successfully mounted on ships was the really impressive part though.

Normal sailing ships could handle ballistas and crossbows without any real problems, but catapults of any kind, let alone ones as big as the trebuchets were impractical for use on ships; between the masts, yardarms, sails, and rigging, there simply wasn't any room for a long throwing arm to get the sort of rotation necessary to properly fling anything. In theory, an oar-driven ship could have handled a big catapult, but the problem THERE was that most rowed ships would have been impractical for long-distance voyages, and if you were going to use a catapult to defend in a naval battle, it wasn't all that more advantageous to have one on a ship rather than a pier.

Alex's idea had been to modify the ships, allowing the mainmasts to be rotated or pinned in place; the ships WERE the trebuchets, and vice-versa.

Still, he did have to wonder...

"Burning meat?" he muttered under his breath.

The gang-leader looked up in confusion. "LOOSE!" he bellowed, then turned back to Etoh. "Sorry sir, did you say something?"

Etoh shook his head. "Just wondering why we're bombarding the enemy with burning meat."

The gang-leader managed a rather...polite stare of incredulity. "Um, sir? I uh..." he looked around furtively. "I checked the contents of the barrels, and there isn't any sort of meat in them. It's just some sort of powdered herb, or something."

Etoh blinked. "Burning herbs? How is THAT going to help us take the fort?" He looked at the distant, smoke-shrouded stone walls. "And if it's not animal-based, then why on earth did he say we were fighting with a mighty joint?"

* * *

Beld swung his arms idly, trying to settle his new armor. It felt odd, all told, not to be wearing that massive suit of sooty full plate, but without Soul Crusher bolstering him anymore, he had to face reality; he was getting old.

It would have surprised and disturbed some of those who'd known him to see him now. The transformation wasn't all that dramatic; certainly, he wasn't anywhere near as badly off as Fahn was, but still...

Beld was nearly sixty years old, and while he hadn't looked young for quite some time, he was finally showing his age. Wrinkles seamed his face now, his fiery red hair was so heavily grizzled that it looked almost maroon from the thickly interspersed gray. The gut that Soul Crusher had been neutralizing for so long had finally started to rear it head; he wasn't fat, but if you knew what to look for, you could see the beginning of the paunch.

Still, once he'd been healed, he'd forced himself ruthlessly through recovery, and even without the benefit of Soul Crusher, he was fit for a man his age. Just in time too; what was quite possibly the war to end all wars was sailing into his doorstep, and if he'd been bedridden for it, he never would have forgiven himself.

He turned to consider the figure he cut in the mirror. Not having to deal with the accoutrements of royalty had their advantage, and his new room showed it; he had a sturdy wooden bed, a huge oak table, an armor stand, a trunk full of clothes, and a wall lined with shelves littered with old trophies and souvenirs. Beyond that, it looked like a lodge. The mirror was a relatively new addition, but he figured he was entitled. Besides, it had been a while since he'd had to consider his image.

He'd gotten rid of most of the protection he'd been accustomed to; he simply couldn't handle the weight. He wore a breastplate, greaves, bracers, and a steel helmet worked to resemble the skull of some sort of wildcat. Slung over his shoulders was a woolen cloak woven with steel wire and covered in a layer of the finest, lightest chain mail that the dark elves could make. The whole thing had been enchanted, mostly to buffer the armor, protect what wasn't directly covered by metal, and compensate for the fact that the armor, while of the finest quality, was a good deal lighter and thinner than was normal. The enchantments had been woven by dark elves that Pirotess trusted implicitly, not priests. For some bizarre reason, that actually made Beld more comfortable.

Beld couldn't help it; he smirked at the sight. It felt good to be back in open armor, to be something other than a mobile flag and heavy artillery. So it had ended up costing him his throne; he still couldn't remember feeling more alive than he had during that last duel with Fahn. It would be good to get back out into that kind of brawl again.

His introspection was broken by a light, if insistent tapping on the door.

It was more out of politeness than deference; before Beld could say anything, the door swung open, admitting Pirotess and Lelwys, the former dressed in her normal clothing, while the latter had a long, flat, carved wooden box balanced over one shoulder.

He raised an eyebrow. Pirotess still didn't like him; truth be told, he still didn't like her either. Still, they had a sort of truce of mutual tolerance.

For her part, however irritating she found the former emperor, Pirotess recognized that he was still useful. Besides, Ashram had a job for him, and she felt obligated to see to it that he did so as well as possible. She simply gestured for Lelwys.

He carefully slid the box into his arms, and balancing it carefully, he opened it and reversed it, displaying its contents for Beld.

Resting on a bed of black velvet was a sword.

Naked greed lit Beld's face as he picked it up, admiring the craftsmanship. It was a big sword, nearly four and a half feet from point to pommel. It was also a good deal simpler than he was accustomed to, though that was hardly a down-side in his opinion. The hilt had been wrapped in leather, as was the scabbard, both dyed scarlet and traced in gold. The handle was particularly detailed, but in patterns that Beld recognized would help his grip as much as they'd look pretty. The cross-guard was simply that; a spar of metal designed both to protect his hand and to keep him from cutting himself if his hand slipped.

The whole thing was also covered in runes; he didn't recognize what they meant, but he'd seen and wielded enough magic swords over the years to actually recognize some of the patterns, if not what they did.

"Nothing fancy," Pirotess stated, correctly interpreting his gaze. "It's been enchanted to cut cleaner and be harder to damage mostly. That, and to at least partially neutralize any offensive magic that might be sent your way."

"I'm touched," he quipped, leering. "Ashram's gonna be pissed, losing his woman like this."

Pirotess rolled her eyes; she hated the fact that she was actually getting used to Beld, but she was. "I serve Lord Ashram. Letting you go out and lose your senile head on the battlefield would be of little use to him, regardless of how amusing I might find it."

Beld just snickered.

Further repartee was interrupted by a hesitant knock. As knocks go, it was amazingly expressive; it said with nothing but a single soft percussive tone that the one who'd made it wanted NOTHING more than to remain unheard.

Lelwys had VERY sharp hearing.

The soldier swallowed helplessly as he met Pirotess' and Beld's gaze. Forcing himself upright, he managed a crooked salute. "Er...I...I regret to inform you that Alex Latrans and his forces have landed."

Beld was an old enough campaigner to recognize when someone was being scrupulously honest while telling him effectively nothing. "And?"

The soldier managed not to wince. "...they have landed on our northwestern shore..." taking in Pirotess' glare, he forced his tongue into action, "...and they have taken Fortress Zyrth."

Shocked silence rang in the room. It was broken by a slow, incredulous whistle from Beld.

"He took Zyrth? How the hell did he manage that? You'd need siege engines to do it, and there's nothing there." He frowned in thought; he couldn't remember who was in charge there, but he knew he wasn't an idiot. "The commander knows his stuff; he wouldn't have let Latrans land and get that kind of stuff out." He shook his head in amazement. "I could see him laying siege, maybe, but taking it?"

Pirotess frowned. "...why Zyrth? It's got a good landing zone, perfect for an invasion, but we KNOW that; that's why we have the fortress there." Her eyes narrowed. "We must have stationed a thousand men behind those walls...taking the fortress from them..." she looked up sharply. "How many did he lose?"

...well, on the upshot, there was nothing he could say after this that would make things worse for him, right? "...there were no losses, my lady. The fortress has been taken intact."

"WHAT?!"

Beld stared incredulously...and started to laugh.

Then, he started to guffaw.

"NO LOSSES?! God DAMN! (down-beat on the damn). How the fuck did he manage that?" He couldn't fight back his grin; he was getting his last war, and it looked like it was going to be a hell of one right from the start.

The soldier managed a sickly smile. "...funny you should mention that..."

* * *

Slayn did not stare. Staring implies a certain...well, it doesn't really imply all that much. It tells you that someone is standing there and looking very hard at something without really trying to see what it is. As such, what Slayn was doing could not be called staring, as his looking entailed a great deal of effort on figuring out what the HELL was going on.

"Who's a fuzzy puppy? Yes, you're a fuzzy puppy! You're MY fuzzy puppy!"

He'd expected fighting, and he was watching Caral hawk-riders rubbing kobolds' tummies.

It had been pretty simple, really. The catapults had bombarded the fort with burning casks of...something, Alex still hadn't said what. It wasn't oil, and it couldn't have been all that flammable, or they would have bombarded the walls, rather than aiming for INSIDE the walls. They'd smashed open on hard-packed earth and stone embankments, and filled the air with a dense, choking smoke which, thanks to a circle-cast wind spell, hadn't dissipated.

Five minutes after that, Alex had called off the bombardment, and had them land. Tension was high; many who'd expected to have a fight for their lives after a fruitless action had been...disconcerted, to say the least, when Alex hadn't even bothered to put on armor or order any preparations. He'd just landed them, strolled over to the main gate, and bashed it a few times with a war hammer.

An ogre, barely still on its feet it was swaying so much, had answered the door. And stared at them.

Alex ignored the muttering, ignored the undeniable implications of an unknown human with several thousand armed men behind him, and had waved jauntily.

And after a long, breath-held wait, the ogre had waved back.

And thus had they taken Fortress Zyrth. Though not until AFTER the mages had had time to pump all of the smoke out.

"What manner of poison WAS that?" he wondered aloud.

"Tulle grass."

Slayn started; in the hubbub of reorganizing the fort's defenses, it wasn't surprising that he hadn't heard Alex, but still...it unnerved him. Turning, he couldn't help but feel a perverse bit of happiness at seeing Chiffon blushing; it was the most expression he'd seen out of her in weeks. "What?"

"Tulle grass," Alex repeated. "It's what most of the Caraline's covered in." He grinned. "Ever wonder why no one's ever tried to clear it away with fire? Not only do you have to deal with the roots, but any flame, any heat, and you get this smoke. As you can see," he added with a sweeping gesture, "it has rather...curious results."

Slayn turned to look over the prisoners. Ogres were sitting around, shoving each other thoughtfully; there was no violence in the action, they just seemed kind of curious as to what happened when you shoved the other guy. Goblins were laying around, staring in a stupor at whatever happened to be in their field of vision, until something made them (usually for no discernable reason) break into giggles. As for the kobolds...

"Fetch! Fetch it boy!"

The kobolds seemed to have regressed into a more bestial state; they'd always looked lupine, now they were just more so. Though apparently, if you got a wolf mellow enough...

Carals and Lusitanians both were collaring them, staking claims to new pets.

It was more surreal than disturbing, really. But only just.

If nothing else, Slayn had to admit he was amazed at how quickly everything was going. Troops were still landing; there was plenty of beach space, but Alex had ordered the ships to head back out to sea once they'd unloaded. Kashue was only a day or two behind them after all, and he wanted to make sure there was landing for them as well.

But what shocked him was the transformation that was taking place over the fortress.

There's a finite limit to what a magic-user can do in the course of a day. His experience, his tendencies, his endurance, age...there are a thousand factors, but what they all finally add up to is that you can only channel a certain amount of power without burning yourself out. There were however ways to store that energy, to create spells and store them for later use.

Take five hundred spell-casters, priests and wizards both. They'd had an average of fifteen days each to prepare the spells in question and store them; 7,500 days worth of magic.

It was amazing what you could do with that sort of power.

In this case, he'd had them do landscaping on a grand scale; they'd restructured the land for nearly a quarter of a mile around, raising the height of the hill that the fortress sat on nearly a hundred feet. It had taken a HUGE amount of power, but it had been done, and that was only the beginning.

He'd had them cut the hill face like stair steps with angled faces, compressing and transforming the raw earth into properly shaped facing stone that teams of Coyotes under dwarven direction were turning into 15-foot retaining walls on the hill side...with a few unpleasant surprises. The only way up, short of scaling ladders, was a long, twisty path up stairs that had similarly been spaced around the various stepped fortifications. As for the fortress itself, the walls were growing thicker and higher, being repaired properly for the first time in hundreds of years (at least, according to Ghim).

Trebuchet-style catapults were being assembled on the highest levels, while shorter-ranged torsion catapults and ballista were being wheeled into place on the lower levels. Crenellations had been erected on each of the steps, each one stuffed to the gills with crossbows, arrows, bolts, javelins, stones (for dropping on people's heads) and various other unpleasant anti-siege missile weapons.

Fortress Zyrth was no longer one of the best defended, most heavily fortified locations on Marmo; it was now quite possibly the most heavily fortified, best defended location on Lodoss.

He just hoped it would be enough.

* * *

It was no real surprise that an army should show up now; they were invading someone's country for god's sake. Still, the fact that they'd known it was coming came as little comfort to the Coyotes.

Their landing on Marmo hadn't really helped either; at least not the method. If Alex had landed them and ordered a bloody charge up to the gates of Zyrth, and taken the place only after thousands of bodies lay rotting on the field for either side...well that at least was expected, wasn't it? And the worst would have been over with; those who'd survived largely unscathed would have had some confidence in the fact that their armor WOULD protect them, their weapons COULD kill the enemy, and that the tactics and training they'd endured WERE effective at what they had to do.

Alex had instead just baked them into submission. And while it was funny as hell to watch the dawning indignation on the prisoners' faces when they realized what had happened...

They didn't know. They just didn't know. Did they have what it took to win? Would they survive? Was there ANY point at all in their training, or were they just there so that Alex could have an audience for his tricks?

It wasn't the sort of thing you wanted to wonder about when twenty thousand plus troops were waiting for you across the entirety of the battlefront.

As such, when the officer in command of one of the advance forces halted well back from the gates, there were more than a few who would have cautiously admitted to being relieved.

Alex's feelings, for all that he kept them to himself, were mixed. On the one hand, he knew that he was now sitting on the most defensible location on Lodoss with a well-rested, well-provisioned, well-armed force that easily outnumbered the small advance troop he had to face. As far as he was concerned, not losing wasn't even an issue. On the other hand, he was getting regular reports about the mind-set of the newer recruits, and it wasn't encouraging. They could hold out until Armageddon (never-mind that as far as Lodoss was concerned, that was about three weeks away), but that wasn't the point. Alex knew perfectly well that a siege would only grind on his men; how long could they hold up to the tension? They were trained, but they were still raw recruits; even if only one in ten started to crack, how long would it be before their tension infected the rest of the Coyotes?

He needed to defuse the tension, and in military terms, that meant a victory, which meant battle, or at least combat; a sortie at the very least.

Hence his current position; wading shoulder-deep through slimy river water, an increasingly-irate Bucephalus glaring at him while a troop of two hundred light cavalry slogged along behind him, cold, wet, and too miserable to be scared.

From a purely tactical point of view, it was...justifiable. He had a strong position that he was holding just long enough to provide Kashue with a beachhead; doing anything other than waiting was unnecessary. On the other hand, he had a chance not only to drive off a hostile force, but to provide his raw recruits with an overwhelming victory, to send terrified rumors running back to the main Marmo forces, and best-case scenario, to get some prisoners capable of providing him with some information he didn't already have.

At least that was how he was justifying it. If he was going to be brutally honest with himself, he just wanted to kill something.

Not for the first time, he wondered what he'd been thinking, putting together a private army to storm his way into Conquera to rescue Deed; whatever glory might be entailed, he should have been clever enough to spot what a massive pain in the ass it was going to be running the bloody thing.

The plan wasn't too terribly complicated; Zyrth had been built where a small river ran through steep limestone cliffs to the sea; it was high enough on a promontory to have the high-ground, and protected on two sides by the cliff faces, one to the sea and one for the river. Aside from the other obvious benefits, the riverbanks were steep enough to provide cover, and the water slow enough that, while it wouldn't be fun, it was still possible to move upstream. A few miles upstream, the banks would be low enough for them to climb out and double back on the Marmo advance force's camp.

They wouldn't be able to do too much damage; they were outnumbered ten to one. The plan rather was simply to charge in at full speed, kill anyone who got within range, set everything on fire they could reach, and high-tail it back towards Zyrth.

For starters, at anyway.

It took well over an hour to get through the river, and even longer before they got the signal that the other forces were in position. By then, the men had dried out enough to be half-stiff and half-shaking-in-fear, and Alex ended up wasting another ten minutes riding between them, finding things to comment on as he made personal reassurances. A speech was all well and good, but too impersonal; he needed these men to trust him.

Finally, there was simply nothing left to do. Hoisting his new war-scythe, Alex nudged Bucephalus into a canter, his men behind him in column. In spite of the tension, or perhaps because of it, Alex felt the ghost of a smile crossing his lips.

Before the night ended, there were going to be brand new nightmares on Marmo.

* * *

Draxos hated night-watch duty.

He understood intellectually (at least as much as the word was applicable to him) why it had to be done, but why him? This was Marmo for goddess' sake; none of its own would dare to rise up against Ashram, and as for these 'invaders?' Light-landers, a more pathetic horde of milksops Forceria had yet to produce. More importantly, night was when things got...enjoyable. The wine flowed, the goblins danced there stupid fucking dances, and a fellow willing to put up with a few welts and scars just might find the attentions of a lady for the evening.

Instead, he was standing here walking back and forth like a damned wind-up toy in the muggy night air, the sounds of people doing less boring things wafting his way, as though to add insult to injury.

_Bloody night-watch duty..._

The sudden glow of torchlight that appeared in the distance, closing quickly, could have been seen as the answer to his prayers, or perhaps a cruel irony (likely both). Draxos simply stared at first; it took time for the reality of a night-attack to penetrate to his mind. In the end, he was only briefly troubled; it wasn't until he heard the sound, half howl and half scream that he really understood what was happening.

By then, it hardly mattered.

* * *

"BURN IT ALL!"

Alex howled with savage glee as he charged through the camp. He hadn't bothered with a torch himself, preferring to announce himself with a scythe blade through the night-guardsman. He'd managed to build up to nearly a full gallop by the time he'd breached the camp, and Bucephalus was somehow managing to keep that pace in spite of the sea of obstacles around him. The demon-horse was racking up a body count of his own, timing his strides to ensure that more often than not, his hooves came down on flesh and bone rather than dirt. Alex wasn't even bothering to steer at this point, letting Bucephalus guide him into the thickest patches of soldiers.

His war-scythe, as he'd predicted, was a bitch to wield; he'd locked his legs tight around Bucephalus's sides just to keep from falling out of the saddle as each swing of the unbalanced monster tried to pull him to the ground. Still, he was finding his rhythm now, and any feelings that he might have made a mistake in choosing this weapon disintegrated every time he watched a Marmo soldier's legs fly off in a different direction from the rest of him.

Around him, his men were riding through the camp in seeming confusion that had actually taken days to choreograph, as they set fires throughout the camp, apparently at random. Those who'd already used their torches had drawn sabers or couched short lances and were hacking and stabbing their way through confused, drunken, and half-asleep soldiers.

Some part of Alex worried about the time, considering how long before the confusion would give way to outrage and they'd be swarmed. Some part of him was wondering how the men behind him would feel after this was all over, assuming they all survived. Some part of him; most of him was focused on where to hack.

The blare of trumpets managed to cut through the bloody haze rising up through his eyes; it was a Marmo horn, a call to muster. Finishing off one last soldier, he raised the scythe over his shoulder, balancing it enough to allow his legs to unclench. Rising in his stirrups, he bellowed at the top of his voice "FALL BACK!" Matching actions to words, he dug his heels into Bucephalus's flanks, sending him charging back through the camp, circling but pointedly NOT killing anyone. Once he was sure that his cavalry were well away, he turned and followed, smirking despite himself as half-understood orders echoed behind him.

* * *

Hakkon stared in consternation at his camp; he'd posted guards, he'd set up a defensible perimeter, and they'd just ridden straight in...

One kobold, luckless enough to have spilt liquor in its fur when the flames came, staggered away, howling in pain as it burned. The sight, for all its horror, galvanized something in Hakkon, cutting through his confusion.

"They dare to attack us…" he spun for a bit, trying to find one of his officers. When that proved largely futile, he settled for grabbing a dead herald's trumpet and blasting it as loudly as he could. "FALL IN!" he snarled as he ran for a horse still trying to find a way out that didn't involve flames or screaming two-legged drunks. Once he managed to hoist himself into the saddle, he took another cursory glance over his forces. They were beaten up, most of them, but casualties were fairly low; he doubted he'd lost even a tenth of his forces. "They think they can ride in here and burn us?" he snarled. "They think they can sail into OUR land, steal OUR forts, kill US with impunity?" He yanked his sword free, thrusting it into the air. "Let's teach those light-landers what it means to face Marmo!"

It would have been generous to call the assent that rose into the night cheers, but it was assent, and that was all that Hakkon cared about. Spinning his horse to face Zyrth, he pointed with his sword. "FORWARD!"

* * *

Alex watched the camp from the trees. Tactically, hiding from the enemy in this situation was ludicrous; he had a fort not five miles away, well within range of a fast gallop, and he was leading light cavalry, the fastest land force he could have wished for. Having bloodied their nose, it would have made sense to retreat to safety.

On the other hand, to extend the analogy, if you bloody someone's nose, you'd better make damned sure you drop them; some men might back off, others are just going to get pissed and come swinging even harder.

He wanted to make sure Marmo knew the consequences for that.

The men were behaving...about how he'd hoped, honestly. He'd explained why he wanted them to pull up short, to light this fire, to dismount, and nervous as they might be, they were willing to give him a chance. Besides which, they were so hopped up on adrenaline they could barely sit still; having a moment to gush over what they'd jus successfully pulled off was doing a wonder for morale. For his part, Alex kept out of it; someone needed to keep watch for the Marmo, and he suspected his presence would be something of a buzz-kill.

It surprised him how much that thought hurt; it was hard to forget how close he'd gotten to the original Coyotes, and these new recruits...he would have sighed if he was still breathing. _Thank God it'll all be done with soon..._

_They're coming._

Alex looked up as Cyrus came winging towards him. "How far?"

The raven landed on Bucephalus's head, mantling its wings in an avian shrug. _At least a mile off, but they're moving quickly. You've got...seven, eight minutes, I'd guess._

Alex nodded thoughtfully, looking back towards the light horse. "Are they moving as one, or are there any advance scouts? Vanguard, formation, anything?"

Cyrus shook his head. _They're pretty well pissed. As near as I can tell, their commander put the horse behind the infantry, mostly to make sure his cavalry didn't outrun them. He doesn't seem like a man with a plan, he just wants to charge in and kill everything._

Alex quirked an eyebrow. "Do I sense a rebuke?"

Cyrus mantled again. _If you hadn't stuck to the plan, there...might be something for you to 'sense.' As it is, I think you have grounds for not liking these people._

Alex was quiet for a moment. "Do I? Do I really, Cyrus?" He shook his head. "I'll kill Wagnard and dance on his grave, sure, but the rest of these poor bastards..." he sighed. "I'm invading their home, and however noble my intentions, they're well within their right to try to stop me." He sighed again. "And in spite of how I feel, I know I'm not going to stop; I'll feel bad after I kill them, but knowing that, I still plan on killing everything that gets between me and Conquera."

_If you don't, Deed is going to die, Wagnard will summon a goddess of destruction, and all of Lodoss will be destroyed, either by Kardis herself or when the other gods try to stop her._

"If you put it that way, sure, it sounds easy. Me, I'm not too sure intentions or ends should be enough..." Alex shook his head. "I wish it was all as easy as the killing; thinking is the hard part." He looked around. "I've lost enough time wool-gathering; let's get this show on the road."

The cavalry weren't exactly pleased to have their party broken up, but they didn't complain. This was going to be the tricky part. Alex rode among them, a small little lopsided grin on his lips. "They're coming for us now, men. They're coming with rage and vengeance in their hearts. They're coming to kill all of us...and you know? They're too mad to realize what's going to happen to them. They're too blind with rage to even imagine that they're doing exactly what we've pushed them to do." He raised his scythe. "So let's push them a little more, shall we?" He turned, as shouts and torchlight became noticeable. "Here they come; let's have a little fun, shall we? Two columns, don't ride too fast, and move the instant you see the signal."

His grin widened. "What you do here tonight...they'll make legends of it."

He hadn't expected a cheer, but he wouldn't admit how much it helped.

Not out loud, at least.

* * *

"GET THEM!"

Hakkon might have smiled in different circumstances; they could have run, but they'd stopped to congratulate themselves on how bloody clever they'd been. They were his for the taking, but it was hard to forget what they were congratulating themselves over. He'd save his smiles for after they were all dead.

They rushed forward, the enemy horse strung out and straggling, limping just ahead of his horde. Hakkon grunted irritably under his breath; they weren't losing them, but keeping pace with the infantry was driving him to distraction. That he couldn't do anything about it only made things worse; the woods weren't terribly thick, but they were thick enough to make a cavalry charge impossible. Between that and the rocky terrain ahead, there was nowhere for his horse to maneuver. He'd have to settle for being well-rested when they finally caught up, but now, he almost wished that he'd sent his horse ahead.

He consoled himself; they'd be out of the forest soon, and then he'd be able to wheel around the flanks of his infantry and cut the light-landers off.

The Coyotes light cavalry swept out past the tree line, and broke into a trot. Hakkon cursed under his breath; they might get away at this rate. "FASTER! FASTER, GODS DAMN IT!"

The chase continued as the Marmo charged pell-mell out of the forest, the horse splitting around the infantry like water around a rock, forming up again in front. Abruptly, a flare of light rose above Zyrth, and the light horse, speeding up, split into two columns, each wheeling to the side. Before Hakkon could make sense of what was about to happen, a volley of arrows scythed into his cavalry. Hakkon screamed as an arrow tore into the meat of his thigh; he doubled over just as his horse reared, arrows in its flanks, pitching him from the saddle. He managed to avoid falling on the arrow, more through chance than design, but the impact jarred the wound, blinding him with pain. He didn't lose consciousness; it might have been a mercy, but that much was denied him.

Hakkon forced himself onto one knee, looking at his advance force. There weren't many dead among the cavalry; they were well-armored, and at that range, there were more wounded than killed, but that hardly mattered; the cavalry was halted, a wall of horse-flesh that their own infantry was suddenly stuck behind. Cursing, Hakkon turned back towards Zyrth, and shading his eyes -

Shading his eyes. Squinting through the glare, he realized that some kind of magical light was illuminating Zyrth and the forces arrayed in front of it. He stared at a mass of five thousand soldiers, only realizing they were archers when he noticed the strange, darkened cloud rising from them and suddenly falling towards him.

They couldn't possibly aim at this range, but with mounting horror, he understood; a volley that thick could kill simply by virtue of the sheer density of arrows. Trying to ignore the screaming horses, he tried to bellow only to force out a weak "retreat" before the volley struck home.

He needn't have bothered; the devastating barrage of arrows was enough to put retreat in the thoughts of every soldier. Unfortunately, that simply wasn't to be; the moment the last Marmo soldier had exited the forest, pikemen hiding in the woods to either side of the road had jogged out silently, forming up into phalanxes six men deep and a thousand men wide. Heavy cavalry meanwhile had rode out, ignored with the distraction of the archers under the bright mage light, forming up into massive columns on either flank.

Among the archers, Alex raised his scythe, halting the volleys. Slayn immediately sent mage-lights skimming over the heads of the heavy horse, signaling them to form into an inverted wedge; between then and the pikers, they had the Marmo surrounded in a triangular formation.

Alex waited a moment, letting the site sink into every head, then dropping his scythe, he raised himself up in his stirrups, and let loose with a howl.

The pikes were the anvil, the heavy horse hammers.

As for the Marmo...they might be best equated to an over-ripe melon.

It didn't take long.

* * *

Alex strode through the bodies. There were survivors among the marmo, mostly those who'd been overlooked. He had no idea if any of them had tried to surrender; he had a hard time seeing his men accepting it if it had been offered. The Coyotes hadn't gotten off scot-free; there were perhaps a dozen dead, and a few hundred wounded, though whether it had been the Marmo or other, overly zealous coyotes responsible for those wounds, no one was entirely sure.

All in all, it had been a resounding victory.

That was how Alex was forcing himself to view it, in any case.

He turned away, back towards Zyrth, back to his massed army, his freshly tempered troops, many horrified, many elated, but to a man, in awe of what they'd just done.

Alex jerked a careless thumb over his shoulder. "The Marmo. The bogeymen of Lodoss, the evil beasts that go bump in the night...the terrible stories that mothers on Lodoss use to frighten their children into compliance..." he strode forward, hands clasped behind his back, his voice somehow reaching the massed men without shouting. He paused, looking over his men, his head sweeping first right, then left. "You know, I can't shake this thought...that the most terrifying thing to ever grace the shores of Marmo, is standing right in front of me?"

Silence greeted that. Then, from somewhere in the back, came a ragged shout. Almost as though they'd been waiting for that signal, the rest of the Coyotes joined in, sporadically at first, then louder and louder.

Alex closed his eyes as the shouts swept over him; they were still closed when somewhere among the men, the shouts changed to howls that swelled and swelled until they echoed off the walls of Zyrth.

Echoed out to sea, loud enough for the men of Kashue's fleet to hear...

Echoed into the interior, for more cautious Marmo scouts to bring back to Beld...to Ashram...

To Wagnard.

To be concluded...

Author's Notes: It's kind of hard to believe I'm still writing this; it's been years. Truth be told, I had the first six or so pages written a while back, and I just...lost the juices, if that makes any sense. I just couldn't get into it. I've been trying to write a full novel, to get into writing professionally, and looking back at what I've written, I can't help but feel like I need to finish this first.

This's just about it; I have one last chapter to right, to finish this whole thing off, and then…who knows? I have a lot of ideas, but I don't know if they'll go anywhere. As far as what comes next, I can only say that time will tell.


End file.
